Acinetobacter baumannii
Acinetobacter baumannii: A Hospital’s Nightmare
Emily Whittaker
Microbiology
Dr. Cuccio
May 29, 2014
Introduction
From the beginning of time, our world and the knowledge that surrounds us has steamed from curiosity. Ever since Leeuwenhoek, our society over the years has developed a vast understanding of microbiology and the role they play in the environment. Microbes are found all around us and are involved in all parts of our lives and necessary for survival. In many instances however, microbes are known to cause serious and even fatal problems in living things. No matter how much we think we know, microbes can outsmart our advances towards defeating them. They achieve this by passing on DNA to future microbes on how to resist antibiotics. Acinetobacter baumanii is important in the world of microbiology and is a strong antibiotic resister. It accounts for 80% of reported infections related to Acinetobacter species worldwide (Center for Disease Control 2010) not to mention the fact that that this bacteria is majorly hospital acquired and nicknamed as 'Iraqibacter' due to its seemingly sudden emergence in military treatment facilities during the Iraq War.
How was this bacteria discovered?
The history of the genus Acinetobacter dates back to the early 20th century, in 1911, when Beijerinck, a Dutch microbiologist, described an organism named Micrococcus calco-aceticus that was isolated from soil by enrichment in a calcium-acetate-containing minimal medium (Camp 2010). Acinetobacter began to be recognized as a significant hospital pathogen in the late 1970s, but at that time it was easily treated as it was susceptible to commonly used antimicrobials. In 1986 a pair of researchers, Bouvet and Grimont, delineated 12 DNA groups of Acinetobacter using DNA-DNA hybridization and proposed 4 new species. These 4 included A. baumannii. (Peleg, Paterson & Seifret 2008) Basically by using deductive research they looked at the
Emily Whittaker
Microbiology
Dr. Cuccio
May 29, 2014
Introduction
From the beginning of time, our world and the knowledge that surrounds us has steamed from curiosity. Ever since Leeuwenhoek, our society over the years has developed a vast understanding of microbiology and the role they play in the environment. Microbes are found all around us and are involved in all parts of our lives and necessary for survival. In many instances however, microbes are known to cause serious and even fatal problems in living things. No matter how much we think we know, microbes can outsmart our advances towards defeating them. They achieve this by passing on DNA to future microbes on how to resist antibiotics. Acinetobacter baumanii is important in the world of microbiology and is a strong antibiotic resister. It accounts for 80% of reported infections related to Acinetobacter species worldwide (Center for Disease Control 2010) not to mention the fact that that this bacteria is majorly hospital acquired and nicknamed as 'Iraqibacter' due to its seemingly sudden emergence in military treatment facilities during the Iraq War.
How was this bacteria discovered?
The history of the genus Acinetobacter dates back to the early 20th century, in 1911, when Beijerinck, a Dutch microbiologist, described an organism named Micrococcus calco-aceticus that was isolated from soil by enrichment in a calcium-acetate-containing minimal medium (Camp 2010). Acinetobacter began to be recognized as a significant hospital pathogen in the late 1970s, but at that time it was easily treated as it was susceptible to commonly used antimicrobials. In 1986 a pair of researchers, Bouvet and Grimont, delineated 12 DNA groups of Acinetobacter using DNA-DNA hybridization and proposed 4 new species. These 4 included A. baumannii. (Peleg, Paterson & Seifret 2008) Basically by using deductive research they looked at the