First report of isolation of Nocardia otitidiscaviarum from hospital water

Nocardia otitidiscaviarum DSM43242 was first isolated as a novel species in 1924 from infected middle ear of guinea pig. Since then, there have only been a lot number additional reports for example from Spain, the USA, French and Japan, on the isolation of this species from clinical specimens such as pulmonary infection, disseminated infection, cutaneous infection and primary brain abscess. Nocardia infection is mainly associated with immunocompromised patients, but sometimes may appear in healthy humans. We herein present the first report on isolation of this organism from hospital water, which represents the environmental resources as a source of risk for people especially the hospital environment. The isolate NR4 was subjected to identification by conventional phenotypic tests such as resistance to lysozyme and molecular tests including genusspecific PCR for Nocardia based on partial 16S rDNA gene and sequencing analysis of 16S rDNA. Our finding of 16S rDNA gene sequence of the studied strain were identical and showed 100% similarties with those of Nocardia otitidiscaviarum.