Although it is frequently a harmless commensal organism living on the skin and in the mucous membranes, C. xerosis is also a clinically relevant opportunistic pathogen that has been attributed to many different infections in animals and humans.

[1][2] However, its actual prominence in human medicine is up for debate due to early difficulties distinguishing it from other Corynebacterium species in clinical isolates.

[1] C. xerosis was found to contain a series of plasmids, one of which confers resistance to common antibiotics such as chloramphenicol, kanamycin, streptomycin, and tetracycline and was named pTP10.

[6] A study in 1967 confirmed the ability of several strains of C. xerosis to form single-layer "clumps" of cells around gas bubbles when cultures of the bacteria are suspended in buffer solutions at low temperatures with vigorous stirring.

[7] Despite normally being a commensal organism, C. xerosis has been linked to many different opportunistic infections in humans and animals, including endocarditis, sepsis, abscesses, and osteomyelitis.