Listeria monocytogenes: What do you know about?

Listeria monocytogenes is a gram-positive facultative anaerobic rod that is a well-known pathogen in the neonate, but it has been increasingly recognized as a pathogen in adults. It can cause infections like meningitis, bacteremia with or without sepsis and chorioamnionitis. Conditions such as advanced age, pregnancy, malignancy, alcoholism, cirrhosis, Crohn's disease, the post-renal transplant state, the treatment with corticosteroids are associated with an increased risk of infection. Listeria monocytogenes is the main pathogenic among the seven known Listeria species [6-9] however rare cases of human disease caused by other species have been reported [6].Techniques for isolation of Listeria monocytogenes included, for all specimens, selective enrichment and cold enrichment that have been shown to increase isolation rates significantly [12]. Subculture was performed after 24 hours on Listeria Selective Medium (Oxford Formulation) has following the methodology and using selective enrichment media described in the literature [13]. Culture was incubated at room temperature for 24-48 hours.