Outbreaks of Kingella kingae Infections in Daycare Centers Suggest Tissue Tropism of the Causative Strains.

Background: Although Kingella kingae is recognized as an important pediatric pathogen, our knowledge of the virulence factors involved in the invasion of specific host's tissues is limited. Outbreaks of K kingae infections in daycare centers represent natural experiments in which a single virulent strain, introduced into a cohort of susceptible young children, causes multiple infections. If K kingae strains exhibit tissue tropism, the syndromes observed in a given cluster of cases would be relatively homogeneous.

Respiratory carriage of the novel species by young children.

, a novel species implicated in a pediatric joint infection, has been recently characterized but its epidemiology remains largely unknown. The pharyngeal carriage of was studied by re-examining the results of a previous longitudinal study conducted in a cohort of healthy Israeli children from whom upper respiratory tract specimens were sequentially cultured between the ages of 2 and 36 months. Isolates were identified as by a species-specific nucleic amplification assay and genotyped by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis.

A New Highly Sensitive and Specific Real-Time PCR Assay Targeting the Malate Dehydrogenase Gene of Kingella kingae and Application to 201 Pediatric Clinical Specimens.

is a significant pediatric pathogen responsible for bone and joint infections, occult bacteremia, and endocarditis in early childhood. Past efforts to detect this bacterium using culture and broad-range 16S rRNA gene PCR assays from clinical specimens have proven unsatisfactory; therefore, by the late 2000s, these were gradually phased out to explore the benefits of specific real-time PCR tests targeting the gene and the RTX locus of However, recent studies showed that real-time PCR (RT-PCR) assays targeting the sp. RTX locus that are currently available for the diagnosis of infection lack specificity because they could not distinguish between and the recently described species.