REVIEW article
Front. Med.
Sec. Infectious Diseases: Pathogenesis and Therapy
Nocardia gipuzkoensis pneumonia diagnosed via metagenomic next-generation sequencing—Coinfection with COVID-19 was a blessing in disguise
TianYu Sun 1
TengFei Yang 2
Bo Zhao 2
1. The Fourth People's Hospital of Shenyang, Shenyang, China
2. Sheng Jing Hospital Affiliated, China Medical University, Shenyang, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Abstract
We described an elderly woman with chronic cough and expectoration, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 due to fever. However, as her imaging results were atypical, we initiated a series of diagnostic tests and identified a Nocardia gipuzkoensis infection via metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS). Nocardia gipuzkoensis is a rare pathogen that can infect immunocompetent hosts. This article not only reviewed cases of Nocardia gipuzkoensis infection, but also reviewed Nocardia cases coinfected with COVID-19, which can be secondary to COVID-19 infection or not be identified until after infection with COVID-19. As an emerging auxiliary diagnostic technology, mNGS plays an important role in detecing rare pathogens or mixed infections. We believe that this report will be of interest to pulmonologists, radiologists, and a wide range of readers.
Summary
Keywords
Nocardia gipuzkoensis, COVID-19, MNGs, Pneumonia, Co-infection
Received
29 September 2025
Accepted
26 December 2025
Copyright
© 2025 Sun, Yang and Zhao. 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: Bo Zhao
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.