Burkholderia mallei

Lisa A. Spacek, M.D., Ph.D.
Burkholderia mallei is a topic covered in the Johns Hopkins ABX Guide.

To view the entire topic, please or .

Pediatrics Central™ is an all-in-one application that puts valuable medical information, via your mobile device or the web, in the hands of clinicians treating infants, children, and adolescents. Explore these free sample topics:

-- The first section of this topic is shown below --

MICROBIOLOGY

  • Facultative, aerobic, nonmotile, slender, intracellular. Gram-negative rod.[3]
    • Agent of glanders, a disease of solipeds
    • Thrives intracellularly by modulating host immune-signaling pathways.[5]
  • If suspected, notify lab personnel
    • B. mallei is highly infectious as an aerosol.
    • Classified as a Tier 1 biological select agent, https://www.selectagents.gov, accessed (9/1/19).
  • Sometimes erroneously identified as Pseudomonas sp. by standard microbiologic testing, and B. mallei is morphologically indistinguishable from B. pseudomallei.
  • Hard to see on Gram stain. Grows slowly, best with glycerol.

-- To view the remaining sections of this topic, please or --

MICROBIOLOGY

  • Facultative, aerobic, nonmotile, slender, intracellular. Gram-negative rod.[3]
    • Agent of glanders, a disease of solipeds
    • Thrives intracellularly by modulating host immune-signaling pathways.[5]
  • If suspected, notify lab personnel
    • B. mallei is highly infectious as an aerosol.
    • Classified as a Tier 1 biological select agent, https://www.selectagents.gov, accessed (9/1/19).
  • Sometimes erroneously identified as Pseudomonas sp. by standard microbiologic testing, and B. mallei is morphologically indistinguishable from B. pseudomallei.
  • Hard to see on Gram stain. Grows slowly, best with glycerol.

There's more to see -- the rest of this topic is available only to subscribers.

Last updated: October 1, 2019