Affiliations 

  • 1 Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
  • 2 Department of Microbiology, Ibrahim Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • 3 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • 4 Institute of Health and Community Medicine, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Sarawak, Malaysia
  • 5 Lao-Oxford-Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Trust Unit, Microbiology Laboratory, Mahosot Hospital, Vientiane, Lao People's Democratic Republic
Am J Trop Med Hyg, 2024 Sep 03.
PMID: 39226893 DOI: 10.4269/ajtmh.24-0144

Abstract

Melioidosis is an emerging tropical infectious disease with a rising global burden caused by the environmental bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei. It is endemic in Southeast and South Asia, including Bangladesh. A rare aminoglycoside-susceptible B. pseudomallei isolate (Y2019) has recently been reported from a melioidosis patient in Dhaka, Bangladesh. To understand the geographical origins of Y2019, we subjected it and 10 other isolates from Bangladesh to whole-genome sequencing. In a phylogenetic tree with a global set of B. pseudomallei genomes, most Bangladeshi genomes clustered tightly within the Asian clade. In contrast, Y2019 was closely related to ST881 isolates from Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, a gentamicin-sensitive sequence type, suggesting infection in Borneo. Y2019 also contained the same gentamicin sensitivity conferring nonsynonymous mutation in the drug efflux pump encoding the amrB gene. In the absence of a full travel history, whole-genome sequencing and bioinformatics tools have revealed the likely origin of this rare isolate.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.