title: Bacteremia in an immunocompromised patient caused by a commensal Neisseria meningitidis strain harboring the capsule null locus (cnl).
abstract: We recently described the capsule null locus (cnl) of constitutively unencapsulated Neisseria meningitidis clonal lineages. cnl meningococci were recovered from healthy carriers at high frequency. We here report on the first case of invasive disease caused by cnl meningococci in a severely immunosuppressed patient with chronic graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell transplantation. The sequence type 845 strain was extensively typed and, furthermore, shown to be sensitive to serum bactericidal activity.
authors.affiliation: National Reference Laboratory for Meningococci, Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology, University of Würzburg, Josef-Schneider-Str. 2, 97080 Würzburg, Germany. uvogel@hygiene.uni-wuerzburg.de
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Vogel
authors.forename: Heike
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Claus
authors.forename: Lutz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: von Müller
authors.forename: Donald
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bunjes
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Elias
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Frosch
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016470:Bacteremia / Q000382:microbiology*; D016667:Bacterial Capsules / Q000235:genetics*; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D006086:Graft vs Host Disease / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D009345:Neisseria meningitidis / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D036102:Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplantation