Klebsiella pneumoniae

Habitat

Bacteria of the genus Klebsiella are widely distributed in nature, in the soil and in water. They are also part of the normal flora of the intestinal tract, but usually in low numbers compared with E. coli. Klebsiella, especially strains of the species K. pneumonia, are opportunistic pathogens that can cause pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and bacteremia. In recent years there has been an increase in Klebsiella infections, especially in hospitals and due to multiple-antibiotic resistant strains. In humans with underlying health problems such as diabetes mellitus, K. pneumoniae sometimes causes an acute primary infection that results in lobar pneumonia. Aggressive treatment with antibiotics is required to prevent mortality. Klebsiella is the cause of about 10% of urinary tract infections in humans.

Biology

Klebsiella is a Gram-negative bacterium, a cylindrical rod of size about 2 microns by 0.5 microns, thus much smaller than the cells of higher organisms such as humans. The most striking difference between most strains of Klebsiella and its close relatives E. coli and Salmonella is that Klebsiella cells have a thick coat of slime or extracellular polysaccharide which is called a "capsule". In culture, the bacterium will grow on artificial media to form colonies; the capsule is readily seen in these colonies. The capsule protects the cells from dessication, and may also protect them from phagocytosis when they are in an animal host. Surprisingly, many strains of Klebsiella can fix nitrogen, i.e., they can reduce atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia and amino acids.

Sequencing Plan

Klebsiella pneumoniae MGH 78578 ATCC 700721was isolated from the sputum of a 66 year old male patient in 1994. The patient was in the medical ICU when the specimen was obtained and the organism was considered to have a role in pneumonia. The strain is resistant to many antibiotics, including ampicillin, ticarcillin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and gentamicin, but is susceptible to amikacin, ciprofloxacin, and imipenem. This strain is available from the American Type Culture Collection as ATCC 700721 or from the Salmonella Genetic Stock Centre as SGSC4697. The genome has been sequenced to 8X coverage, using plasmid and fosmid libraries, and was finished to an error rate of less than 1 per 10,000 bases. Automated annotation has been performed and manual annotation is continuing. This project is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH).

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Contacts

Name	Affiliation
Patrick Minx	The Genome Institute, Washington University School of Medicine

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Sequences & Maps

Assemblies

Name	Date	Description	Blast DBs
Klebsiella_pneumoniae-1.0	Jul 25, 2005	8X	chromosomes consensus plasmid5 plasmid4 plasmid3 plasmid2 plasmid1

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