Listeria costaricensis is the official name given to the new bacterial species
described by investigators from the Costa Rican Institute of Technology (TEC)
and the WHO-collaborating center on Listeria at Institut
Pasteur.
Listeria is
a bacterial genus comprising 18 species. Two of them are pathogenic to humans
and animals, upon consumption of contaminated food. Listeria
monocytogenes, the best characterized pathogenic species, can cause
gastroenteritis, septicemia and central nervous system infection, mostly in
immunocompromised individuals, as well as fetal and neonatal infection.
While the new species Listeria costaricensis is
non-pathogenic, its characterization will nonetheless increase our
understanding of the pathogenic potential of Listeria. "The
discovery of Listeria costaricensis will allow comparisons
with pathogenic Listeriaspecies, in order to better understand
the behavior and adaptations of these bacterial pathogens," explained TEC
biotechnologist Kattia Núñez.
Listeria costaricensis was isolated from water collected at an industrial drainage area
in the Costa Rican province of Alajuela, after three years of sample collection
and research. "In Costa Rica, there have been few studies on
microbiological diversity. Our recent finding reflects the biodiversity of
Costa Rican soils and suggests that this Central American country is a fertile
environment for this type of research," added Javier Pizarro-Cerda,
Research Director at the Institut Pasteur, who participated in the study and
now heads the Yersinia Research Unit. For Marc Lecuit, head of Biology of
Infection Unit at Institut Pasteur and French National Reference Center
for Listeria (page in French), this collaboration
illustrates the public health and scientific dimensions of the activities of
the WHO-collaborating center on Listeria, which assists
colleagues from around the world on the characterization of Listeria isolates.
Listeria costaricensis has been registered in the microorganism collections of the
Institut Pasteur in Paris and in the DSMZ, in Germany; its description was
published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary
Microbiology (30.01.2018, Vol. 68: 844-850). Following this
discovery, the Institut Pasteur and TEC, who have been engaged in informal
collaborations since 2013, signed a cooperation agreement to facilitate the
continuation of collaborative work between the two institutions.
For details:
Kattia Núñez-Montero, Alexandre Leclercq, Alexandra Moura,
Guillaume Vales, Johnny Peraza, Javier Pizarro-Cerdá, Marc Lecuit. Listeria
costaricensis sp. nov.. International Journal of Systematic
and Evolutionary Microbiology, 2018; 68 (3): 844 DOI: 10.1099/ijsem.0.002596
Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle