Morgenella morganii prevalence
Analysis data of the 191 samples showed that the prevalence of Morgenella morganii in three cities was 10.5% (20/191),the prevalence in Guang'an city was 18.2% (14/77),7.8% (5/64) in Yibin, 2% (1/50) in Ziyang. The partial amplified positive PCR products were analyzed by agarose gel electrophoresis (Figure 1). Single DNA positive bands were clearly shown on the gel.
Morgenella morganii culture characteristics and 16S rRNA gene analysis
Three M. morganii strains (16GA7, 17GA61.2, and 17YB9) were isolated from positive nasal swab samples. Isolates grew as pale pink, translucent round small colonies on MacConkey medium (Figure 2A), and as white, translucent, weakly beta hemolyzed round colonies on blood agar medium (Figure 2B), belonged to gram-negative brevibacterium determined by gram staining (Figure 2C). The 16S rRNA gene of the strains were amplified and sequenced. Through the NCBI BLAST analysis, the similarity between the obtained sequences of isolates and reference M. morganii sequences in Genbank could reach 99%. The 16S rRNA gene sequences of M. morganii strains (16GA7, 17GA61.2, and 17YB9) have been deposited in the GenBank database under accession numbers MN807692, MN807693, and MN807694. These strains were phylogenetically clustered with M. morganii strains SQ-1 (GenBank accession number KJ794191.1) and IT-4-1 (GenBank accession number KU570304.1) (Figure 3). The three M. morganii strains had shared biochemical characteristics (Table 2); each strain could metabolize glucose, mannose, ornithine, and phenylalanine, could not metabolize sucrose, maltose, lactose, rhamnose, melibiose, arabinose, mannitol, sorbitol, adonitol, inositol, lysine, arginine, esculin, and salicin, and was also H2S test negative. Semi-solid agar puncture test showed that three M. morganii strains had no motility.
Antimicrobial susceptibility testing
Inhibition diameters and sensitivity for M. morganii strains 16GA7, 17GA61.2, and 17YB9 were shown in Table 3. Strain 16GA7 was sensitive to piperacillin, tetracycline, enrofloxacin, and dose-dependently sensitive to carbenicillin, meropenem, amikacin, and minocycline, and resistant to ampicillin, cephalexin, cefuroxime, imipenem, streptomycin, kanamycin, midecamycin, florfenicol and polymyxin B. Strain 17GA61.2 was sensitive to carbenicillin, piperacillin, amikacin, enrofloxacin, florfenicol, and dose-dependently sensitive to cefuroxime, meropenem, streptomycin, and kanamycin, and resistant to ampicillin, cephalexin, imipenem, tetracycline, minocycline, midecamycin and polymyxin B. Strain 17YB9 was sensitive to carbenicillin, kanamycin, tetracycline, minocycline, enrofloxacin, florfenicol, dose-dependently sensitive to piperacillin, streptomycin, amikacin, and resistant to ampicillin, cephalexin, cefuroxime, imipenem, meropenem, midecamycin and polymyxin B (Table 3).
Mouse virulence
Mice inoculated with M. morganii were depressed, huddled together, had abdominal breathing, and sticky ocular secretions, and moribund mice had open mouth breathing. No clinical abnormalities were evident in control mice. All mice inoculated with strain 16GA7 dead, 3 mice inoculated with strain 17GA61.2 dead, and no mice inoculated with strain 17YB9 dead. Pulmonary hemorrhage was evident in inoculated mice, with no other gross post-mortem pathology evident in other organs. Control mice had no gross pathological abnormalities (Figure 4). Each M. morganii strain was re-isolated from the tissue samples of mice inoculated with the corresponding strain.
Each M. morganii strain presented with similar histopathological findings, although differences were evident (Figure 5). Strain 16GA7 was associated with pulmonary hemorrhage, alveolar wall thickening, pulmonary inflammatory cell infiltration, spleen congestion, hepatic cord disorder, hepatocyte swelling and necrosis, and narrow renal cystic spaces. Strain 17GA61.2 was associated with pulmonary hemorrhage, necrosis, collapsed alveolar structures, pulmonary inflammatory cell infiltration, increased splenic multinuclear macrophages, indistinct splenic white pulp structure, hepatic cords derangement, hepatocyte swelling and necrosis, and narrowing of the renal cystic cavity (Figure 5). Strain 17YB9 was associated with pulmonary hemorrhage, alveolar wall thickening, pulmonary inflammatory cell infiltration, splenic congestion, vacuolar degeneration, hepatic cord derangement, hepatocyte swelling and necrosis, vacuolar degeneration; narrowing of the renal cystic space, and vacuolar degeneration. There were no abnormalities in the cardiomyocytes of the mice infected any of the M. morganii strains. There were no histopathological abnormalities in control mice.