Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Other Pseudomonas Species
Date
2019
Type:
Book chapter
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Abstract
Pseudomonas species are ubiquitous gram-negative bacteria capable of
inhabiting a wide variety of diverse environments, including soil, water, plants, insects, and animals. Among all Pseudomonas species, P. aeruginosa is the most important species affecting humans and is responsible for serious debilitating and life-threatening infections.
P. aeruginosa infections were noted in the literature in the 1800s when physicians began to report a “condition” causing a blue-green discoloration on bandages and associated with a “peculiar” odor. The cause of the discoloration was first characterized by Fordos in 1869, who extracted the blue crystalline pigment called pyocyanin. In 1882, Gessard verified “the parasitic origin of this phenomenon” using Pasteur’s cultures and isolated the organism, which was originally called Bacillus pyocyaneus. Initially, this pathogen was regarded as “a curiosity without any influence upon human pathology,” and “old surgeons looked uponblue pus on their dressings as rather a favorable sign.” In 1894, Williams
provided one of the first reviews of case reports of B. pyocyaneus infections. He described septic patients with “hemorrhagic spots of a port-wine color” and pustules, with recovery of the organism from these skin lesions. Subsequently, more case reports of infections caused by B. pyocyaneus appeared in the literature.
In the 1940s, Haynes provided detailed microbiologic characteristics of P. aeruginosa that
would distinguish it from Pseudomonas fluorescens. During the Vietnam War, P. aeruginosa was recorded as one of the three most common
wound pathogens. By the mid-1990s, P. aeruginosa became of great concern as a pathogen associated with burn infections and war-related wounds. P. aeruginosa is now considered to be of most concern because it causes a variety of infections associated with considerable morbidity and mortality, usually occurring among immunocompromised hosts. Furthermore, single-drug and multidrug resistance rates are particularly
high for this pathogen, which severely limits the therapeutic options available to treat infected patients.
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Citation
Araos, R., & D’Agata, E. (2019). Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Other Pseudomonas Species. In Mandell, Douglas, and Benett's principles and practice of infectious diseases (pp. 2686-2699). Churchill Livingstone Elsevier Philadelphia.
Keywords
Pseudomonas Species, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacteria, Gram negative bacteria