Burkholderia cepacia
Ecology
Isolated from water, soil, plants (Allium cepa - onion, rice), animals and clinical
samples (sputum of cystic fibrosis patients, blood, ear, respiratory tract, and from the
hospital environment).
Burkholderia pyrrocinia, B. cepacia and some strains of Pseudomonas chlororaphis
produce the antibiotic pyrrolnitrin.
Pathogenicity
Plant pathogen (rice, onion);
Produces pneumonia and endocarditis in horse, mammitis in sheeps; nosocomial
infections, urinary tract infections and pneumonia in humans (cystic fibrosis).
Respiratory infections may be fatal.
References
  1. Palleroni N.J. & Holmes B.: Pseudomonas cepacia sp. nov., nom. rev. Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol., 1981, 31, 479-481.
  2. Yabuuchi E., Kosako Y., Oyaizu H., Yano I., Hotta H., Hashimoto Y., Ezaki T. & Arakawa M.: Proposal of Burkholderia gen. nov. and
    transfer of seven species of the genus Pseudomonas homology group II to the new genus, with the type species Burkholderia
    cepacia (Palleroni and Holmes 1981) comb. nov. Microbiol. Immunol., 1992, 36, 1251-1275.
  3. Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology, vol. 2, part C: The Alpha-, Beta-, Delta-, and Epsilonproteobacteria. Class II.
    Betaproteobacteria, Order I. Burkholderiales, 575-623.
  4. Vanlaere E., Lipuma J.J., Baldwin A., Henry D., De Brandt E., Mahenthiralingam E., Speert D., Dowson C. & Vandamme P.:
    Burkholderia latens sp. nov., Burkholderia diffusa sp. nov., Burkholderia arboris sp. nov., Burkholderia seminalis sp. nov. and
    Burkholderia metallica sp. nov., novel species within the Burkholderia cepacia complex. Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol., 2008, 58,
    1580-1590.
  5. Teizi Urakami, Chieko Ito-Yoshida, Hisaya Araki, Toshio Kijima, Ken-Ichiro Suzuki, and Kazuo Komagata: Transfer of
    Pseudomonas plantarii and Pseudomonas glumae to Burkholderia as Burkholderia spp. and Description of Burkholderia vandii
    sp. nov. Int J Syst Bacteriol April 1994 44:235-245.
  6. Viallard, Veronique, Poirier, Isabelle, Cournoyer, Benoit, Haurat, Jacqueline, Wiebkin, Sue, Ophel-Keller, Kathy, Balandreau,
    Jacques. Burkholderia graminis sp. nov., a rhizospheric Burkholderia species, and reassessment of [Pseudomonas]
    phenazinium, [Pseudomonas] pyrrocinia and [Pseudomonas] glathei as Burkholderia. Int J Syst Bacteriol 1998 48: 549-563.
  7. Henry, D. A., Mahenthiralingam, E., Vandamme, P., Coenye, T., and Speert, D. P. (2001). Phenotypic methods for determining
    genomovar status of the Burkholderia cepacia complex. J. Clin. Microbiol. 39, 1073–1078. doi: 10.1128/JCM.39.3.1073-1078.2001
  8. Coenye T., LiPuma J. J., Henry  D., Hoste B., Vandemeulebroecke K., Gillis M., Speert D. P. & Vandamme P.  2001.. Burkholderia
    cepacia genomovar VI, a new member of the Burkholderia cepacia complex isolated from cystic fibrosis patients. Int J Syst Evol
    Microbiol 51, 271–279.
  9. Coenye T., Mahenthiralingam E., Henry D., Lipuma J.J., Laevens S., Gillis M., Speert D.P. and Vandamme P.: Burkholderia
    ambifaria sp. nov., a novel member of the Burkholderia cepacia complex including biocontrol and cystic fibrosis-related isolates.
    Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol., 2001, 51, 1481-1490.
  10. Vandamme P., Henry D., Coenye T., Nzula S., Vancanneyt M., Lipuma J.J., Speert D.P., Govan J.R.W. and Mahenthiralingam E.:
    Burkholderia anthina sp. nov. and Burkholderia pyrrocinia, two additional Burkholderia cepacia complex bacteria, may confound
    results of new molecular diagnostic tools. FEMS Immunol. Med. Microbiol., 2002, 33, 143-149.
  11. Reimer, Lorenz Christian and Vetcininova, Anna and Carbasse, Joaquim Sardà and Söhngen, Carola and Gleim, Dorothea and
    Ebeling, Christian and Overmann, Jorg. BacDive in 2019: bacterial phenotypic data for High-throughput biodiversity analysis,
    Nucleic Acids Research, , gky879, https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gky879 (Burkholderia pyrrocinia).
  12. Coenye T., Falsen E., Hoste B., Ohlen M., Goris J., Govan J.R.W., Gillis M. And Vandamme P.: Description of Pandoraea gen. nov.
    with Pandoraea apista sp. nov., Pandoraea pulmonicola sp. nov., Pandoraea pnomenusa sp. nov., Pandoraea sputorum sp. nov.
    and Pandoraea norimbergensis comb. nov. Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol., 2000, 50, 887-899.
  13. Gillis M., Van T.V., Bardin R., Goor M., Hebbar P., Willems A., Segers P., Kersters K., Heulin T. and Fernandez M.P.: Polyphasic
    taxonomy in the genus Burkholderia leading to an emended description of the genus and proposition of Burkholderia
    vietnamiensis sp. nov. for N2-fixing isolates from rice in Vietnam. Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol., 1995, 45, 274-289.
Genomovars
/ Tests
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
Lysine decarboxylase
+
d
+
+
+
-
+
d
nd
Ornithine decarboxylase
[-]
-
[+]
+
-
-
-
-
nd
Growth at 42 ºC
d
+
[+]
-
+
+
[-]
d
-
PNPG / ONPG
+
+
+
-
+
+
+
d
+
Nitrate reduction
-
+
[-]
-
d
+
d
d
-
Gelatin liquefaction
d
-
d
+
-
-
+
-
-
Esculin hydrolysis
d
-
d
-
-
-
d
d
-
Oxidase
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
d
Growth on MacConkey agar
[+]
+
[+]
+
[+]
+
+
+
nd
Haemolysis
[-]
-
-
-
d
-
[+]
-
nd
Legend: +  positive 90-100%, - negative 90-100%, [+] positive 75-89%, [-] negative 75-89%, d positive 25-74%, nd not determined.
Taxonomy
Morphology
Cultural characteristics
Biochemical characters
Class Betaproteobacteria, Order Burkholderiales, Family Burkholderiaceae, Genus Burkholderia, Burkholderia cepacia Yabuuchi et al.
1993, type species of the genus.

Old synonyms:
Pseudomonas multivorans Stanier et al. 1966, Pseudomonas cepacia Burkholder 1950.
Burkholderia cepacia complex includes species: Burkholderia anthina, B. ambifaria, B. arboris, B. cepacia, B. cenocepacia, B. diffusa,
B. dolosa, B. latens, B. metallica, B. multivorans, B. pyrrocinia, B. seminalis, B. stabilis & B. vietnamiensis
.

B. cepacia genomospecies I     =>
Burkholderia cepacia sensu stricto,
B. cepacia genomospecies II    =>
Burkholderia multivorans Vandamme et al. 1997,
B. cepacia genomospecies III   =>
Burkholderia cenocepacia Vandamme et al. 2003,
B. cepacia genomospecies IV   =>
Burkholderia stabilis Vandamme et al. 2000,
B. cepacia genomospecies V    =>
Burkholderia vitenamiensis Gillis et al. 1995,
B. cepacia genomospecies VI   =>
Burkholderia dolosa Vermis et al. 2004,
B. cepacia genomospecies VII  =>
Burkholderia ambifaria Coenye et al. 2001,
B. cepacia genomospecies VIII =>
Burkholderia anthina Vandamme et al. 2002,
B. cepacia genomospecies IX   =>
Burkholderia pyrrocinia Viallard et al. 1998.
Gram-negative rods, 0.8-2 μm, motile.
Nonfluorescent pigments produced by most strains in colonies and in surrounding
medium (usually yellow or greenish).  Can produce a large variety of pigments (green,
brownish, red, violet etc.)
Obligately aerobic, optimal growth temperature 30-35 ºC. Media: Trypticase Soy Agar, Nutrient agar, Mueller-Hinton agar, BCSA
medium (NaCl: 5 g, Saccharose 10 g, Lactose 10 g, Phenol red 0.08 g, Crystal violet 0.02 g, Trypticase peptone 10 g, Yeast extract 1.5
g,  Agar 14 g, Polymyxin sulfate B 600 000 UI, Gentamycin 0.01, Vancomycin 0.025, H
2O ad 1000 ml).
Positive results for alkaline phosphatase, catalase and oxidase (slow reaction for B. anthina, negative for some B. pyrrocinia strains).
B. cepacia can utilize D-ribose, arabinose, fucose, trehalose, cellobiose, salicin, N-acetylglucosamine, amygdalin, arbutin, 2- and
5-ketogluconate, D-lyxose, ribose, tagatose, adonitol, arabitol, dulcitol, xylitol, aconitate, adipate, azelate, butyrate, caprate, caproate,
caprylate, citraconate, citrate, propionate, glutarate, glycolate, isobutyrate, isovalerate, itaconate, valerate, tartrate, arginine, citruline,
cysteine, glycine, histidine, L-leucine, isoleucine, lysine, treonine, tryptophan, tyrosine, valine, benzoate, m- and o-hydroxybenzoate,
L-serine, D- and L-alanine, phenylacetate and gluconate (most genomovars). Can use more than 100 different organic compounds
as sole carbon source for growth.

Maltose, tartrate, mesaconate, erythritol, lactose, and ethanol are not utilized. Arginine dihydrolase is negative.

Sucrose utilization is variable, gelatin and esculin are hydrolyzed by some strains. Lecithinase is variable.
(c) Costin Stoica
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