Dialister

Abstract

Dialister pneumosintes belongs to a group of anaerobic, gram-negative, small rods that are unreactive to commonly used biochemical tests. Over the years, because of difficulties in precisely identifying this microorganism by phenotypical means, the role of this species in several human infections has been underestimated. More recently, the development and improvement of molecular techniques of microbial identification have shown D. pneumosintes to be an important human bacterial pathogen. This chapter describes characteristics of this pathogen and related infections, as well as molecular techniques for its identification in clinical samples.