Antibiotics susceptibility of Burkholderia species of Sarawak origin

ABSTRACT

Aims@#The Burkholderia species is comprised of more than 70 members which co-exist in the same ecological niche including Burkholderia pseudomallei, which causes fatal melioidosis infections in humans and animals. Many of the members of the Burkholderia species share similarities in their biochemical and morphological profiles. B. pseudomallei is intrinsically resistant to a myriad of antibiotics and hence, the treatment of melioidosis involves various types of antibiotics with prolonged prescription. Apart from B. pseudomallei which has been widely described due to its clinical importance, little is known about the antibiotics mechanisms and susceptibility profile of Burkholderia species. This leads to the question of whether the antibiotics susceptibility profile of the Burkholderia species is similar to that of B. pseudomallei. @*Methodology and results@#In this study, Burkholderia species isolated from environmental samples were tested for their susceptibility against gentamicin, ceftazidime, cotrimoxazole (trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole) and azithromycin using the disk diffusion test method. The antibiogram profiles Burkholderia species isolates tested in this study suggested that the antibiogram profile of Burkholderia spp. resembles that of B. pseudomallei for some antibiotics while totally different for other antibiotics.@*Conclusion, significance and impact of study@#The actual mechanisms which render these observations and whether the interaction of these subspecies within the same ecological niche attribute to these observations warrant further investigation.