Serratia marcescens
From Freepedia
| Serratia marcescens | ||||||||||||||
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| Serratia marcescens Bizio 1823 |
Serratia marcescens is a Gram negative bacterium, a human pathogen of the family Enterobacteriaceae. It is involved in nosocomial infections, particularly urinary tract infections and wound infections.
Most strains are resistant to several antibiotics because of the presence of R-factors on plasmids.
Because of its red pigmentation, and its ability to grow on bread, it has been evoked as a naturalistic explanation of Medieval accounts of the "miraculous" appearance of blood on the eucharist that led to Pope Urban IV instituting the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264.[1]
S. marcescens can cause conjunctivitis, keratitis, endophthalmitis, and tear duct infections. It is not uncommon in the respiratory and urinary tracts of adults and the gastrointestinal system of children. [2]
In corals, it is the cause of the disease known as White pox.
It is a rod shaped, motile organism and can grow in temperatures ranging from 5–40 degrees Celsius and in pH levels ranging from 5 to 9. [3]
In the 1950s S. marcescens was erroneously believed to be non-pathogenic and its reddish coloration was used in school experiments to track infections. It has also been used as a simulant in biological warfare tests by the United States Military. On September 26 and 27, 1950, the United States Navy conducted a secret experiment named "Operation Sea-Spray" in which an aerosolized cloud of S. marcescens was sprayed over urban areas of the inland San Francisco Bay Area in California from balloons lofted from Navy vessels standing just off the coast to gauge the effectiveness of a similar biological attack. Although the Navy later claimed the bacteria were harmless, beginning on September 29 eleven patients at a local hospital developed very rare, serious S. marcescens infections and one of these individuals, Edward J. Nevin, died (Cole 1988, Regis 1999). Since that time, S. marcescens has steadily increased as a cause of human infection, with many strains resistant to multiple antibiotics (Hejazi and Falkiner 1997). The first indications of problems with the influenza vaccine produced by Chiron Corporation in 2004 involved S. marcescens contamination.
References
- Cole, Leonard A. (1988). Clouds of Secrecy: The Army's Germ-Warfare Tests Over Populated Areas. Foreword by Alan Cranston. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0847675793.
- Hejazi A, Falkiner FR (1997). Serratia marcescens. J Med Microbiol 46:903-12.
- Regis, Ed (1999). The Biology of Doom : America's Secret Germ Warfare Project. Diane Publishing Company. ISBN 0756756863.
