Clinical Fusobacterium mortiferum Isolates Cluster with Undifferentiated Clostridium rectum Species Based on 16S rRNA Gene Phylogenetic Analysis

Abstract

The most commonly encountered clinical Fusobacterium species are F. nucleatum and F. necrophorum; other Fusobacteria, such as F. mortiferum and F. varium, have occasionally been isolated from human specimens. Clostridium rectum is a gram-positive species characterized as a straight bacillus with oval subterminal spores. The close 16S rRNA gene sequence relationship of C. rectum with the genus Fusobacterium is unexpected given their very different phenotypic characteristics. Between 2014 and 2015, a total of 19 Fusobacterium isolates were recovered from the colonic tissue of 10 patients at a university hospital. All isolates were identified based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The phylogenetic relationship among these isolates was estimated using the neighbor-joining method and the Molecular Evolutionary Genetic Analysis (MEGA) version 6. Based on phylogenetic analysis, the F. mortiferum isolates clustered into two groups - F. mortiferum DSM 19809 (group I) and F. mortiferum ATCC 25557 (group II)-even though they are of the same species. Furthermore, the F. mortiferum DSM 19809 (group I) showed a close phylogenetic relationship with C. rectum, even though C. rectum is classified as a gram-positive spore-producing bacillus. C. rectum is clearly unrelated to the genus Clostridium as it shows highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity with species from the genus Fusobacterium. Therefore, additional methods such as Gram staining and other biochemical methods should be performed for Fusobacterium identification.