Diagnosis of culture-negative infective endocarditis usually implies indirect pathogen identification by serologic or molecular techniques. Clinical metagenomics, relying on next-generation sequencing (NGS) is an emerging approach that allows pathogen identification in challenging situations, as evidenced by a clinical case. We sequenced the DNA extracted from the surgically-removed frozen valve tissue from a patient with suspected infective endocarditis with negative blood and valve cultures. Mapping of the sequence reads against reference genomic sequences, a 16S rRNA gene database and clade-specific marker genes suggested an infection caused by Cardiobacterium hominis.
Keywords: Cardiobacterium hominis; clinical metagenomics; culture-negative endocarditis; diagnosis; next-generation sequencing.
Copyright © 2019 Kolb, Lazarevic, Emonet, Calmy, Girard, Gaïa, Charretier, Cherkaoui, Keller, Huber and Schrenzel.