Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative rod-shaped bacterium renowned for its environmental and metabolic versatility. It is a common inhabitant of soil and water and can also be isolated from plants and animals.  P. aeruginosa is one of the Gram-negative so-called ESKAPE pathogens (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter species) “escape” killing by antibiotics and defy eradication by conventional therapies. ESKAPE bacteria are particularly concerning because they represent the largest group of hospital-acquired pathogens with growing incidences of antibiotic resistance that makes them especially deadly, with mortality rates being 14% for methicillin-resistant S. aureus,  25% for vancomycin-resistant Enterococci, 39% for P. aeruginosa, and 50% for hospital-acquired A. baumannii.

P. aeruginosa represents a critical threat to human health because of its high tolerance to antibiotics and rapid development of resistance to almost all current antimicrobial therapies. This pathogen is responsible for more than 50,000 infections per year in the U.S., causing acute, chronic, and relapsing/persistent (ACRP) human infections due to a wide variety of virulence factors. A principal project in the Rahme laboratory seeks to characterize P. aeruginosa genes that encode wide-host range virulence factors and determine how these factors mediate infection.