Systemic infection of an immunocompromised patient with Methylobacterium zatmanii

We describe the identification of Methylobacterium zatmanii as the causativ e agent of bacteremia and fever in an immunocompromised patient. The patien t, a 60-year-old man, had a 5-month history of acute myeloid leukemia and h ad been on chemotherapy throughout this period. Seven days after the onset of neutropenia, the patient developed fever. The combination of ciprofloxac in, co-trimoxazole, imipenem, amikacin, and vancomycin led to a complete de fervescence. On subculture from six positive blood cultures, the organism g rew only on buffered charcoal yeast extract agar and not on standard agars. Identification by universal PCR and subsequent sequence analysis of the am plified 16S rRNA gene segment was achieved. This identification by molecula r biology techniques was confirmed by conventional biochemical tests. To ou r knowledge, this is the first description of nl. zatmanii isolated from pa tient material.