Phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of Arcanobacterium haemolyticum isolated from clinical samples in a Danish hospital Osama Sammra & Alice Friis-Møller & Anna Balbutskaya & Muaz Hijazin & Samy Nagib & Jörg Alber & Christoph Lämmler & Amir Abdulmawjood & Markus Timke & Markus Kostrzewa & Ellen Prenger-Berninghoff Received: 13 August 2013 /Accepted: 27 January 2014 # Institute of Microbiology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v.v.i. 2014 Abstract Six Arcanobacterium haemolyticum strains isolated from six patients of two hospitals in Denmark were identified phenotypically, also including matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) analysis, and by genotypic methods. The latter were performed by sequencing 16S rDNA and glyceraldehyde 3- phosphate dehydrogenase encoding gene gap and by amplifi- cation of an A. haemolyticum specific region of 16S–23S rDNA intergenic spacer region and 23S rDNA. The six A. haemolyticum strains were further investigated for the presence of seven potential virulence genes encoding arcanolysin, phospholipase D, hemolysin A, CAMP factor family protein, collagen binding protein, neuraminidase A and neuraminidase H which appeared to be present in two (seven virulence genes), two (six virulence genes) and two strains (four virulence genes), respectively. The phenotypic and genotypic properties described in the present study might help to reliably identify and further characterize A. haemolyticum isolated from human patients, a species which seems to be of increasing importance. Genus Arcanobacterium, originally classified by Collins et al. (1982), consists of a group of facultatively anaerobic asporogenic Gram positive rods. According to Yassin et al. (2011), the genus was in need of a taxonomic revision. These authors proposed that genus Arcanobacterium should be split into two genera, with A. haemolyticum, A. hippocoleae, A. phocae and A. pluranimalium constituting genus Arcanobacterium and A. pyogenes, A. abortisuis, A. bonasi, A. bernardiae, A. bialowiezense being transferred to the new genus, Trueperella (Yassin et al. 2011). More recently, the novel species A. canis and A. phocisimile were described (Hijazin et al. 2012b, 2013). A. haemolyticum was first de- scribed as Corynebacterium haemolyticum in 1946 as a cause of pharyngitis and soft tissue infections in American soldiers (Maclean et al. 1946 ). A pharyngitis caused by A. haemolyticum resembles that caused by Streptococcus pyogenes and occurs mainly in adolescents and young adults (Banck and Nyman 1986; Miller et al. 1986; Balikci et al. 2011). More rarely, A. haemolyticum is responsible for inva- sive diseases which seem to occur more in old immune compromised patients (Brown et al. 2013). Case reports of systemic and deep seated infections caused by A. haemolyticum and a review of the literature were given by Skov et al. (1998), Tan et al. (2006) and Therriault et al. (2008). However, emphasizing the increasing importance of A. haemolyticum in clinical samples of human patients, García-de-la-Fuente et al. characterized in 2012, 56 A. haemolyticum isolated from respiratory infections of 51 patients which attended primary health care centres and O. Sammra : A. Balbutskaya : M. Hijazin : S. Nagib : J. Alber : C. Lämmler (*) Institut für Pharmakologie und Toxikologie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Schubertstr 81, 35392 Gießen, Germany e-mail: christoph.laemmler@vetmed.uni-giessen.de A. Friis-Møller Department of Clinical Microbiology, University Hospital, Hvidovre, Kettegårds alle 30, 2650 Hvidovre, Denmark A. Abdulmawjood Institut für Lebensmittelqualität und -sicherheit, Stiftung Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover, Bischofsholer Damm 15, 30173 Hannover, Germany M. Timke : M. Kostrzewa Entwicklung Bioanalyse, Bruker Daltonik GmbH, Fahrenheitstraße 4, 28359 Bremen, Germany E. Prenger-Berninghoff Institut für Hygiene und Infektionskrankheiten der Tiere, Justus-Liebig-Universität, Frankfurterstr. 85-91, 35392 Gießen, Germany Folia Microbiol DOI 10.1007/s12223-014-0308-4