Rhodococcus equi is a Gram-positive coccobacillus that can cause a variety of infections in humans, most commonly severe pneumonia.1-4 These infections typically occur in immunocompromised hosts, although, rarely, immunocompetent hosts may be affected as well.1-4 Nonequi Rhodococcus species have been implicated in human disease, albeit less commonly than R equi. We report a case of severe cavit...

Background: Gram-positive bacteria of the genus Rhodococcus have shown an extraordinary capacity for metabolizing recalcitrant organic compounds. One hindrance to the full exploitation of Rhodococcus is the dearth of genetic tools available for strain manipulation. To address this issue, we sought to develop a plasmid-based system for genetic manipulation of a variety of Rhodococcus strains. Re...

Rhodococcus FMF is a gram-positive bacterium isolated for the first time from soil samples of Tabriz refinery in Iran. This microorganism is able to catabolize dibenzothiophene to 2-hydroxybiphenyl and inorganic sulfur without the destruction of carbon-carbon bonds. Three structural genes, dszA, dszB, and dszC have been characterized and shown to be responsible for this phenotype. In this work,...

The genus Rhodococcus has proved to be a promising option for the cleanup of polluted sites and application of a microbial biocatalyst. Rhodococcus sp. strain R04, isolated from oil-contaminated soil, can biodegrade polychlorinated biphenyls. Here we report the draft genome sequence of Rhodococcus sp. strain R04, which could be used to predict genes for xenobiotic biodegradation and provide imp...

It is now well established that material naturally moves around the Solar System, even from planetary surface to planetary surface. Accordingly, the idea that life is distributed throughout space and did not necessarily originate on the Earth but migrated here from elsewhere (Panspermia) is increasingly deemed worthy of consideration. If life arrived at the Earth from space, its relative speed ...

The degradation of the herbicides EPTC (S-ethyl dipropylthiocarbamate) and atrazine (2-chloro-4-ethyl-amino-6-isopropylamino-1,3,5-triazine) is associated with an indigenous plasmid in Rhodococcus sp. strain TE1. Plasmid DNA libraries of Rhodococcus sp. strain TE1 were constructed in a Rhodococcus-Escherichia coli shuttle vector, pBS305, and transferred into Rhodococcus sp. strain TE3, a deriva...

This study sought to determine whether an increase in resistance of Rhodococcus equi to the antibiotics rifampin and erythromycin occurred over a 10-year period. This was carried out by the use of E test strips for rifampin and erythromycin to determine the MIC (minimum inhibitory concentration) values of Rhodococcus equi to this combination of antibiotics.The findings of this study indicated t...

Four Rhodococcus strains that can degrade PCB/biphenyl were isolated under various conditions. We cloned and analyzed seven bphC gene clusters and found that the bphC8 gene cluster is essential for PCB/biphenyl degradation in R. rhodochrous K37. The product of the bphC8 gene was more homologous to the meta-cleavage enzyme involved in phenanthrene metabolism rather than to those encoded by well-...

We describe a case of pulmonary malacoplakia and Rhodococcus equi cavitary pneumonia in a patient with AIDS. The relationship between Rhodococcus equi, a rare bacterial human pathogen, and malacoplakia, an unusual type of chronic granulomatous inflammation, is discussed.

The hydrolytic haloalkane dehalogenases are promising bioremediation and biocatalytic agents. Two general classes of dehalogenases have been reported from Xanthobacter and Rhodococcus. While these enzymes share 30% amino acid sequence identity, they have significantly different substrate specificities and halide-binding properties. We report the 1.5 A resolution crystal structure of the Rhodoco...