Quantitative analysis comparison of the multi-drug resistant bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii from different human body sites has revealed genomic plasticity.
In a study published by the Journal of BMC Genomics, a team of scientists investigated whether A. baumannii strains isolated from different body sites held genetic features which correlated to their isolation source.
A. baumannii is a bacterium which is resistant to a number of drugs, as well as appearing in both invasive (inside the body) and colonised (on the skin surface) sites, causing a significant problem of proliferation within hospitals and health care providers.
The team undertook a high resolution, genome alignment method which detailed the phylogenetic relationships of sequenced A. baumannii, however no correlation was found between phylogeny and body site of isolation.
As a result, the scientists concluded that A. baumannii is "a diverse and genomically variable pathogen" that has the potential to cause a range of human diseases no matter what the isolation source is.
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