Pseudomonas aeruginosa gets around. The bacterium thrives in soil and marshes, on marine coasts, and in plant and animal tissues. Of particular interest is its occasional, but often devastating, inhabitation of the human environment. It is an important cause of bacteremia associated with burn wounds and with hospital-acquired pneumonia in patients on respirators. It is the microbe that most commonly infects the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis.
Aside from its adaptability, P. aeruginosa is also famous for its natural drug resistance. In general, relatively high doses of aminoglycosides, such as tobramycin, extended-spectrum beta-lactams, and ciprofloxacin, are required to eradicate this organism. P. aeruginosa's genome is one of the largest and most complicated bacterial genomes known, with an estimated 6.3 million base pairs and 5,570 open reading frames, giving this prokaryote a complexity on par with simple eukaryotes.
AN UNUSUAL COLLABORATION P. aeruginosa's pathogenicity has made it a marked microbe, ...
