Laribacter hongkongensis: an emerging pathogen of infectious diarrhea

Abstract

Laribacter hongkongensis is relatively a new name in the list of bacterial pathogens for gastroenteritis and travelers' diarrhea. Addition of another name increases burden on the enteric infections as a whole. L. hongkongensis belongs to Neisseriaceae family of β subclass Proteobacteria. L. hongkongensis was initially isolated in Hong Kong from blood and empyema of an alcoholic cirrhotic patient in 2001, followed by reports from Korea and China, representing a total of 38 articles in PubMed until April 2013. As of now, there is no report from Indian subcontinent where infectious diarrhea is very much prevalent and a major burden. This review provides information about the microbiological characteristics, consideration of an emerging pathogen, relative pathogenicity, genome and proteome content, resistance toward multiple antibiotics, adaptability to different stress, and other features since its time of discovery. Investigation for this bacterium may avoid misidentification as other microbial flora. Further studies like the geographical distribution, type of infection, disease burden, pathogenicity, or genomic exploration of this bacterium will be useful in characterizing them properly. This bacterium may possibly be the emerging threat to public health.