TY - JOUR AU - Shelburne, Samuel AU - Sahasrabhojane, Pranoti AU - Saldana, Miguel AU - Yao, Hui AU - Su, Xiaoping AU - Horstmann, Nicola AU - Thompson, Erika AU - Flores, Anthony T1 - Streptococcus mitis Strains Causing Severe Clinical Disease in Cancer Patients T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2014 VL - 20 IS - 5 SP - 762 SN - 1080-6059 AB - The genetically diverse viridans group streptococci (VGS) are increasingly recognized as the cause of a variety of human diseases. We used a recently developed multilocus sequence analysis scheme to define the species of 118 unique VGS strains causing bacteremia in patients with cancer; Streptococcus mitis (68 patients) and S. oralis (22 patients) were the most frequently identified strains. Compared with patients infected with non–S. mitis strains, patients infected with S. mitis strains were more likely to have moderate or severe clinical disease (e.g., VGS shock syndrome). Combined with the sequence data, whole-genome analyses showed that S. mitis strains may more precisely be considered as >2 species. Furthermore, we found that multiple S. mitis strains induced disease in neutropenic mice in a dose-dependent fashion. Our data define the prominent clinical effect of the group of organisms currently classified as S. mitis and lay the groundwork for increased understanding of this understudied pathogen. KW - viridans group streptococci KW - bacteremia KW - neutropenia KW - Pitt bacteremia score KW - Streptococcus mitis KW - cancer patients KW - cancer KW - multilocus sequence analysis KW - bacteria KW - characterization DO - 10.3201/eid2005.130953 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/20/5/13-0953_article ER - End of Reference