Asset Tag: Microbiology

The genus of Pandoraea was first proposed in 2000 following the isolation from the sputum of cystic fibrosis patients (Coenye et al., 2000). Five species were initially assigned to the novel genus namely Pandoraea apista, Pandoraea pulmonicola, Pandoraea pnomenusa, Pandoraea sputorum, and Pandoraea norimbergensis but the description of four new species and another four genomospecies in the subsequent years led to a total of nine species and four genomospecies within the genus of Pandoraea (Daneshvar et al., 2001; Anandham et al., 2010; Sahin et al., 2011). The isolation of Pandoraea spp. from various environmental samples such as water, sludge, and soils have been reported, but to date, only P. pnomenusa, P. apista, P. pulmonicola, and P. sputorum were isolated from clinical specimens such as blood, sputum and bronchial fluid of patients with cystic fibrosis or chronic lung diseases (Coenye et al., 2000; Daneshvar et al., 2001; Stryjewski et al., 2003; Han-Jen et al., 2013). Members of Pandoraea tend to exhibit broad resistance to ampicillin, extended-spectrum cephalosporins, aztreonam, aminoglycosides, and meropenem but they are sensitive to imipenem (Daneshvar et al., 2001; Stryjewski et al., 2003). However, the clinical significance and prevalence of these multi-drug resistant bacteria among patients with cystic fibrosis or respiratory diseases remained unknown since Pandoraea spp. are usually misidentified as Burkholderia cepacia complex, Ralstonia pickettii, or Ralstonia paucula (Segonds et al., 2003). Ambiguity in differentiating between B. cepacia complex, Ralstonia spp. and Pandoraea spp. can be resolved by 16S ribosomal DNA-PCR (Coenye et al., 2001) and gyrB gene restriction fragment length polymorphism (Coenye and LiPuma, 2002) but the limited use of molecular typing methods in routine clinical microbiological laboratory has resulted in the underreporting of Pandoraea spp. in clinical cases.