Biology

Listeria monocytogenes (originally named Bacterium monocytogenes) is a Gram-positive bacterium rst described in 1926 in Cambridge, United Kingdom, as a cause of infection with monocytosis in laboratory rodents.¹ In the following year, Pirie² also isolated a Gram-positive bacterium, in this instance from infected wild gerbils in South Africa, and proposed the name Listerella for the genus in honor of the surgeon Lord Lister. Murray and Pirie realized that they were dealing with the same species of bacteria and thus combined the names to form Listerella monocytogenes. This was later changed for taxonomic reasons to Listeria monocytogenes³.