Description and complete genome sequence of Mycobacterium venezuelense sp. nov., a rapidly growing species recovered from a soft tissue infection

We describe a rapidly growing mycobacterial (RGM) species closely related to Mycobacterium wolinskyi . The bacterium was isolated from three biopsies obtained from a 78-year-old Venezuelan woman who presented with a chronic superficial erythematous plaque in the right nasal cavity. The three isolates, LTG2003(1–3), exhibited identical phenotypic, biochemical, and molecular characteristics and showed susceptibility to amikacin and linezolid, intermediate susceptibility to cefoxitin and imipenem, and resistance to ciprofloxacin, clarithromycin, sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, and tobramycin. Conventional diagnostic methods, including biochemical assays, hsp65 PCR restriction enzyme analysis (PRA- hsp65 ), the Genotype Mycobacterium CM v2.0 linear probe assay, and Sanger sequencing of the 16S rRNA , hsp65 , and rpoB genes, failed to identify the microorganism to the species level. MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry yielded genus-level scores suggestive of M. wolinskyi . Whole-genome sequencing confirmed that the isolates represent a new species. The type strain, designated LTG 2003-1 (WFCC 1312 = P7483 = CDBB-500-3), has been deposited in two internationally recognized microbial culture collections in Mexico and Brazil. The genome of this organism has also been deposited in GenBank as Mycobacterium sp. LTG2003 with accession number JBONDW000000000. Based on our findings, we propose that the LTG2003(1-3) isolates represent a new species, for which we propose the name Mycobacterium venezuelense sp. nov .