Department of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases Research Group, Siebens-Drake Research Institute, Dental Sciences Building, Room 3014, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ont., Canada N6A 5C1. scardona@uwo.ca
Abstract:
A fast screening method was developed to assess the pathogenicity of a diverse collection of environmental and clinical Burkholderia cepacia complex isolates in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The method was validated by comparison with the standard slow-killing assay. We observed that the pathogenicity of B. cepacia complex isolates in C. elegans was strain-dependent but species-independent. The wide range of observed pathogenic phenotypes agrees with the high degree of phenotypic variation among species of the B. cepacia complex and suggests that the taxonomic classification of a given strain within the complex cannot predict pathogenicity.