Review Question - QID 109703

A 34-year-old female visits her primary care physician because recently she has started to have painful, numb, and discolored toes. She is otherwise healthy and has no family history of similar conditions that she can recall. Occasionally during these episodes, her fingers and nose will also have similar symptoms. On examination, the patient's appearance is completely normal with warm and well perfused extremities. No evidence of discoloration is found. On closer questioning, she reveals that several months ago during the summer, she succumbed to a viral illness that caused her to feel fatigued and have a long bout of cold symptoms with sore throat and swollen lymph nodes. The bacterial species that is also associated with this patient's most likely condition has which of the following characteristics?