Tetragenococcus halophilus (T. halophilus) is a facultative anaerobic, coccus-shaped halophilic lactic acid-producing bacterium previously detected and cultured in various salty foods and credited for beneficial effects on human health. In this study, we investigated the presence of T. halophilus in human samples using a polyphasic approach including scanning electron microscopy, molecular biology methods and microbial culture. This unique investigation yielded the unprecedented presence of T. halophilus in human feces samples, thus enriching the repertoire of halophilic microorganisms colonizing the human gastrointestinal tract with the isolation and culture of T. halophilus for the first time in humans. Using the E-test strips, the MIC was assessed for T. halophilus strain CSURQ6002: rifampicin (MIC at 0.002 μg/mL), benzylpenicillin (MIC at 0.094 μg/mL), amoxicillin (MIC at 0.5 μg/mL), erythromycin (MIC at 2 μg/mL), clindamycin (MIC at 4 μg/mL), and vancomycin (MIC at 8 μg/mL). However, this strain showed a MIC up to 256 μg/mL for ciprofloxacin, fosfomycin, doxycyclin, imipenem, and colistin. In-silico profiling derived from whole genome sequencing (NCBI accession number: PRJNA780809), was confirmed. This discovery suggested that T. halophilus was part of the human digestive microbiota and that its potential role on human health should be considered.
Keywords: Human gut microbiota; Isolation and culture; Next-generation sequencing; Scanning electron microscopy; Tetragenococcus halophilus.
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.