Opportunistic pathogen that causes melioidosis. Burkholderia pseudomallei K96243

Burkholderia pseudomallei strain K96243. This strain was a clinical isolate from Thailand. The genome of this organism carries many genomic islands as compared to the related organism B. mallei, suggesting extensive horizontal transfer. Three different type III secretion systems (TTSS) are encoded on the chromosomes of this organism, two of which are similar to plant pathogenic TTSSs, while the third is similar to the Salmonella pathogenicity island, all of which may contribute to pathogenicity. Other virulence determinants include multidrug efflux pumps, secreted toxins and proteases, and various adhesins. Capsular polysaccharide may protect the organism from host defense mechanisms. This organism also carries a number of small sequence repeats which may promoter antigenic variation, similar to what was found with the B. mallei genome.