Burkholderia is a genus of Pseudomonadota whose pathogenic members include the Burkholderia cepacia complex, which attacks humans and Burkholderia mallei, responsible for glanders, a disease that occurs mostly in horses and related animals; Burkholderia pseudomallei, causative agent of melioidosis; and Burkholderia cepacia, an important pathogen of pulmonary infections in people with cystic fibrosis (CF). Burkholderia species is also found in marine environments. S.I. Paul et al. (2021) isolated and characterized Burkholderia cepacia from marine sponges of the Saint Martin's Island of the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh.
The Burkholderiaceae are a family of bacteria included in the order Burkholderiales. It includes some pathogenic species, such as Burkholderia mallei (glanders) and Burkholderia pseudomallei (melioidosis).
Burkholderia mallei is a Gram-negative, bipolar, aerobic bacterium, a human and animal pathogen of genus Burkholderia causing glanders; the Latin name of this disease (malleus) gave its name to the species causing it. It is closely related to B. pseudomallei, and by multilocus sequence typing it is a subspecies of B. pseudomallei.B. mallei evolved from B. pseudomallei by selective reduction and deletions from the B. pseudomallei genome. Unlike B. pseudomallei and other genus members, B. mallei is nonmotile; its shape is coccobacillary measuring some 1.5–3.0 μm in length and 0.5–1.0 μm in diameter with rounded ends.
Antigenic variation or antigenic alteration refers to the mechanism by which an infectious agent such as a protozoan, bacterium or virus alters the proteins or carbohydrates on its surface and thus avoids a host immune response, making it one of the mechanisms of antigenic escape. It is related to phase variation. Antigenic variation not only enables the pathogen to avoid the immune response in its current host, but also allows re-infection of previously infected hosts. Immunity to re-infection is based on recognition of the antigens carried by the pathogen, which are "remembered" by the acquired immune response. If the pathogen's dominant antigen can be altered, the pathogen can then evade the host's acquired immune system. Antigenic variation can occur by altering a variety of surface molecules including proteins and carbohydrates. Antigenic variation can result from gene conversion, site-specific DNA inversions, hypermutation, or recombination of sequence cassettes. The result is that even a clonal population of pathogens expresses a heterogeneous phenotype. Many of the proteins known to show antigenic or phase variation are related to virulence.
Paraburkholderia caledonica is a species of Pseudomonadota.
Paraburkholderia phymatum is a species of bacteria that is capable of symbiotic nitrogen fixation with the legumes Machaerium lunatum and Mimosa pudica. Recently, the genome was sequenced. It consists of two chromosomes, a megaplasmid, and a plasmid hosting the symbiotic functions.
Paraburkholderia phytofirmans is a species of bacteria. They have been reported to colonize endophytic tissues of hybrid spruce and lodgepole pine with a strong potential to perform biological nitrogen fixation and plant growth promotion.
Paraburkholderia xenovorans is a species of bacteria.
Pathogenomics is a field which uses high-throughput screening technology and bioinformatics to study encoded microbe resistance, as well as virulence factors (VFs), which enable a microorganism to infect a host and possibly cause disease. This includes studying genomes of pathogens which cannot be cultured outside of a host. In the past, researchers and medical professionals found it difficult to study and understand pathogenic traits of infectious organisms. With newer technology, pathogen genomes can be identified and sequenced in a much shorter time and at a lower cost, thus improving the ability to diagnose, treat, and even predict and prevent pathogenic infections and disease. It has also allowed researchers to better understand genome evolution events - gene loss, gain, duplication, rearrangement - and how those events impact pathogen resistance and ability to cause disease. This influx of information has created a need for bioinformatics tools and databases to analyze and make the vast amounts of data accessible to researchers, and it has raised ethical questions about the wisdom of reconstructing previously extinct and deadly pathogens in order to better understand virulence.
Staphylococcus is a genus of Gram-positive bacteria in the family Staphylococcaceae from the order Bacillales. Under the microscope, they appear spherical (cocci), and form in grape-like clusters. Staphylococcus species are facultative anaerobic organisms.
Bacterial small RNAs (bsRNA) are small RNAs produced by bacteria; they are 50- to 500-nucleotide non-coding RNA molecules, highly structured and containing several stem-loops. Numerous sRNAs have been identified using both computational analysis and laboratory-based techniques such as Northern blotting, microarrays and RNA-Seq in a number of bacterial species including Escherichia coli, the model pathogen Salmonella, the nitrogen-fixing alphaproteobacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti, marine cyanobacteria, Francisella tularensis, Streptococcus pyogenes, the pathogen Staphylococcus aureus, and the plant pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pathovar oryzae. Bacterial sRNAs affect how genes are expressed within bacterial cells via interaction with mRNA or protein, and thus can affect a variety of bacterial functions like metabolism, virulence, environmental stress response, and structure.
Paraburkholderia acidipaludis is a Gram-negative, catalase- and oxidase-positive, aerobic, aluminium-tolerant, non-spore-forming, nonmotile bacterium of the genus Paraburkholderia and the family Burkholderiaceae, which was isolated from the Chinese water chestnut in Vietnam and Thailand. Colonies of Paraburkholderia acidipaludis are pale yellow.
Paraburkholderia bryophila is a Gram-negative, catalase- and oxidase-positive, non-spore-forming, and nonmotile bacterium of the genus Paraburkholderia and the family Burkholderiaceae. Research has shown that P. bryophila demonstrates anti-fungal activity against phytopathogens and the growth of plant-associated properties.
Paraburkholderia mimosarum is a gram-negative, catalase and oxidase-positive non-spore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium from the genus Paraburkholderia and the family Burkholderiaceae. P. mimosarum is able to nodulate tropical plant species, mainly from the genus Mimosa.
Paraburkholderia nodosa is a gram-negative, catalase and oxidase-positive, non-spore-forming, bacterium from the genus Paraburkholderia and the family Burkholderiaceae which was isolated from nitrogen-fixing nodules from roots of Mimosa bimucronata and Mimosa scabrella.
Paraburkholderia rhizoxinica is a gram-negative, oxidase and catalase-positive, motile bacterium from the genus Paraburkholderia and the family Burkholderiaceae which was isolated from the plant pathogenic fungus, Rhizopus microsporus. The complete genome of Paraburkholderia rhizoxinica is sequenced.
Paraburkholderia denitrificans is a gram-negative, bacterium from the genus Paraburkholderia and the family Burkholderiaceae which was isolated from wet forest soil on the island of Liancourt Rocks. Paraburkholderia denitrificans has the ability to reduced nitrate to nitrogen gas.
Transcription Activator-Like Effector-Likes (TALE-likes) are a group of bacterial DNA binding proteins named for the first and still best-studied group, the TALEs of Xanthomonas bacteria. TALEs are important factors in the plant diseases caused by Xanthomonas bacteria, but are known primarily for their role in biotechnology as programmable DNA binding proteins, particularly in the context of TALE nucleases. TALE-likes have additionally been found in many strains of the Ralstonia solanacearum bacterial species complex, in Paraburkholderia rhizoxinica strain HKI 454, and in two unknown marine bacteria. Whether or not all these proteins form a single phylogenetic grouping is as yet unclear.
Paraburkholderia is a genus of Pseudomonadota that are gram negative, slightly curved rods that are motile by means of flagella. They have been reported to colonize endophytic tissues of hybrid spruce and lodgepole pine with a strong potential to perform biological nitrogen fixation and plant growth promotion. Unlike Burkholderia species, Paraburkholderia members are not commonly associated with human infection. Paraburkholderia members form a monophyletic clade within the Burkholderiaceae family, which is what prompted their distinction as a genus independent from Burkholderia species, in combination with the finding of robust conserved signature indels which are unique to Paraburkholderia species, and are lacking in members of the genus Burkholderia. These CSIs distinguish the genus from all other bacteria. Additionally, the CSIs that were found to be shared by Burkholderia species are absent in Paraburkholderia, providing evidence of separate lineages.
Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 (PfEMP1) is a family of proteins present on the membrane surface of red blood cells that are infected by the malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum. PfEMP1 is synthesized during the parasite's blood stage inside the RBC, during which the clinical symptoms of falciparum malaria are manifested. Acting as both an antigen and adhesion protein, it is thought to play a key role in the high level of virulence associated with P. falciparum. It was discovered in 1984 when it was reported that infected RBCs had unusually large-sized cell membrane proteins, and these proteins had antibody-binding (antigenic) properties. An elusive protein, its chemical structure and molecular properties were revealed only after a decade, in 1995. It is now established that there is not one but a large family of PfEMP1 proteins, genetically regulated (encoded) by a group of about 60 genes called var. Each P. falciparum is able to switch on and off specific var genes to produce a functionally different protein, thereby evading the host's immune system. RBCs carrying PfEMP1 on their surface stick to endothelial cells, which facilitates further binding with uninfected RBCs, ultimately helping the parasite to both spread to other RBCs as well as bringing about the fatal symptoms of P. falciparum malaria.
