Burkholderia cepacia infection in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, yet no definitive treatment is currently available. This report describes a new approach to treat B. cepacia infection in CF patients, using a combination of amiloride and tobramycin aerosols. Four adults with the typical clinical syndrome of CF were recruited after repeated p...

Burkholderia cepacia is a recognised cause of respiratory failure in patients with cystic fibrosis. The value of routine use of selective enrichment broth to increase the yield of B cepacia from cystic fibrosis sputa was investigated. Two hundred sputa from 86 adult and paediatric patients were cultured onto B cepacia selective agar and also in enrichment broth. The enrichment broths were subcu...

We examined if multilocus sequence typing (MLST), a method for genotyping and species identification of Burkholderia cepacia complex bacteria, could be applied directly to cystic fibrosis sputum. The redesigned nested-PCR MLST format was successfully used to accurately identify strains in 23 sputum samples, of which 8 were culture negative.

Previous studies have identified specific Burkholderia cepacia complex strains that are common to multiple persons with cystic fibrosis (CF). Such so-called epidemic strains have an apparent enhanced capacity for inter-patient spread and reside primarily in Burkholderia cenocepacia (formerly B. cepacia complex genomovar III). We sought to identify strains from B. cepacia complex species other t...

Burkholderia cepacia is a plant phytogen and is known as a hardy and versatile organism. Over the past two decades it has emerged as a pathogen in the cystic fibrosis (CF) community, with devastating effects. Pulmonary colonisation can lead to an accelerated decline in lung function. In some cases, it causes a rapid and progressive pneumonic illness termed "cepacia syndrome", which is untreatab...

Burkholderia contaminans belongs to the Burkholderia cepacia complex (BCC), a group of bacteria that are ubiquitous in the environment and capable of infecting the immunocompromised and people with cystic fibrosis. We report here draft genome sequences for the B. contaminans type strain LMG 23361 and an Argentinian cystic fibrosis sputum isolate.

The ferric uptake regulator (Fur) functions as a transcription repressor of many genes in bacteria in response to iron, but the presence of a functional equivalent of this protein has not been demonstrated in Burkholderia cepacia. A segment of the Burkholderia pseudomallei fur gene was amplified using degenerate primers and used to identify chromosomal restriction fragments containing the entir...

Using primers designed from the nucleotide sequences of five insertion elements identified previously in Burkholderia cepacia, the presence of two insertion sequences (IS406 and IS407) was detected in chromosomal DNA isolated from strains of the human pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei. The IS407 homologue was cloned from B. pseudomallei NCTC 4845 and nucleotide sequenced to confirm its identit...

Burkholderia cepacia-like organisms attract much interest from the agricultural industry as natural promoters of plant growth and biological control agents, and for bioremediation. Some of these organisms, however, cause life-threatening infections, particularly in cystic fibrosis patients for whom this multi-resistant bacterium is a major pathogen. The biodiversity of this group of bacteria is...

An outbreak of subclinical mastitis in a flock of 620 milking sheep was investigated. Microbiological and epidemiological analyses identified the causative agent as belonging to the Burkholderia cepacia complex (formerly Pseudomonas cepacia). Every ewe in the milking flock was individually tested for subclinical mastitis on two separate occasions, 6 weeks apart, by the California (rapid) mastit...