Burkholderia mallei

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Burkholderia mallei

Kingdom:	Bacteria
Phylum:	Proteobacteria
Class:	Beta Proteobacteria
Order:	Burkholderiales
Family:	Burkholderiaceae
Genus:	Burkholderia
Species:	B. mallei

Binomial name

Burkholderia mallei
(Zopf 1885)
Yabuuchi et al. 1993

Synonyms

Bacillus mallei Zopf 1885
Pfeifferella mallei (Zopf 1885) Buchanan 1918
Malleomyces mallei (Zopf 1885) Pribram 1933
Actinobacillus mallei (Zopf 1885) Thompson 1933
Loefferella mallei (Zopf 1885) Holden 1935
Acinetobacter mallei (Zopf 1885) Steel and Cowan 1964
Pseudomonas mallei (Zopf 1885) Redfearn et al. 1966

Burkholderia mallei is a gram-negative bipolar aerobic bacterium, a Burkholderia-genus human and animal pathogen causing Glanders; the Latin name of this disease (malleus) gave name to the causative agent species. It is closely related to B. pseudomallei, and by multilocus sequence typing, it is a subspecies of B. pseudomallei,^[1] or at the very least, paraphyletic. Unlike closely related Burkholderia pseudomallei and other genus members, the bacterium is nonmotile; its shape is something in between a rod and a coccus measuring some 1.5–3 μm in length and 0.5–1μm in diameter with rounded ends.

The bacterium is susceptible to numerous disinfectants including benzalkonium chloride, iodine, mercuric chloride, potassium permanganate, 1% sodium hypochlorite and ethanol. The microorganism can also be destroyed by heating or UV. Antibiotics such as streptomycin, amikacin, tetracycline, doxycycline and sulfathiazole have been reported to be effective against the bacteria in vitro.

B. mallei as well as B. pseudomallei have a history of being on a list of potential biological warfare agents.

This bacterium is one of the first to be identified containing a type VI secretion system which is important for its pathogenicity^[2]

[edit] References

^ Godoy D, Randle G, Simpson AJ, et al. (2003). "Multilocus Sequence Typing and Evolutionary Relationships among the Causative Agents of Melioidosis and Glanders, Burkholderia pseudomallei and Burkholderia mallei". J Clin Microbiol 41: 2068–2079.
^ Schell MA, Ricky L, Ulrich et al. (2007). "Type VI secretion is a major virulence determinant in Burkholderia mallei". Mol Microbiol 64 (6): 1466–1485.