Case summary and Source of isolates	Phenotypic identification	Phenotypic Methods	Genotypic identification	Possible causes for phenotypic misidentification
Pus from a brain abscess in a two-year old girl with congenital cyanotic heart defect	Gemella species	Manual methods	Streptococcus intermedius	Human error
Blood culture (2 sets) from a 68-year old female patient with metastatic cancer	Listeria grayii	Manual methods and API CORYNE (bioMérieux)	Lactobacillus plantarum	Pseudocatalase activity resembling catalase led to misidentification by commercial kit.
Blood and valvular tissue from a 59-year old male patient with infective endocarditis	Pasteurella haemolytica (isolated from blood culture; valvular tissue culture – no growth)	Manual methods, API 20E (bioMérieux) and RapID NF plus (Remel)	Agregatibacter (Haemophilus) aphrophilus (blood culture isolate and valvular tissue)	Erroneous characterisation of the isolate as “glucose non-fermenters” that led to selection of inappropiate identification systems.
Blood culture from a 24-year old female patient with fever and persistent bacteraemia	Actinobacillus ureae	VITEK 1 (the isolate was transferred from another hospital)	Brucella melitensis	Inappropriate reliance on automated indentification system.