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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.

Sec. Clinical Microbiology

Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2025.1629703

Stenotrophomonas tuberculopleuritidis sp. nov., a novel pathogenic Stenotrophomonas species isolated from tuberculous pleurisy patient

Provisionally accepted
  • National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Introduction: Stenotrophomonas represents a group of bacteria that exhibit significant value in industrial and agricultural applications, while also posing pathogenic risks to humans. 704A1 T was isolated from a patient with tuberculous pleurisy. Its 16S rRNA sequence showed the highest homology (99.72%) with a Stenotrophomonas strain without defined species classification. It is necessary to clarify the species 704A1 T belonging to and its potential pathogenicity to humans.Methods: Systematical evaluations including phenotypic and biochemical characteristics, antibiotic susceptibility, genomic sequencing were conducted. The pathogenicity and immunological characteristics were tested by intranasally inoculated C57BL/6J mice.Results: 704A1 T is Gram negative rod-shaped bacterium with flagella at single extreme. Showing highly similar with S. maltophilia, 704A1 T also displayed distinct characteristic peaks in fatty acid profiling and MALDI-TOF analysis. 704A1 T was resistance to 21 antibiotics, including four antituberculosis drugs: rifampicin, streptomycin, rifabutin, and cycloserine. The average nucleotide identity (ANI) values of 704A1 T compared to defined Stenotrophomonas species ranged from 80.03% to 89.6%, below than both the commonly accepted 95%-96% ANI threshold for prokaryote species and the 95% threshold suggested for Stenotrophomonas. Though no mortality was observed, 704A1 T could cause severe consolidation in murine lung tissue and has the ability of hematogenous dissemination.Results supported the classification of 704A1 T (=GDMCC 1.4133 T ) as a novel species within the genus Stenotrophomonas, for which the name Stenotrophomonas tuberculopleuritidis sp. nov. is proposed. 704A1 T is a multi-antibiotic resistance strain with potentially stronger pathogenicity than S. maltophilia and requires more clinical attention. The isolation of 704A1 T underscored the importance of

Keywords: Stenotrophomonas, Tuberculous pleurisy, Multiple-drug-resistant, Sputum, Patient, pathogen

Received: 16 May 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Yu, Xu and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Ruibai Wang, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), Beijing, China

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