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Burkholderia pseudomallei is a Gram-negative, facultative intracellular bacillus and the etiologic agent of melioidosis, a severe disease in Southeast Asia and Northern Australia. Like other multidrug-resistant pathogens, the inherent antibiotic resistance of B. pseudomallei impedes treatment and highlights the need for alternative therapeutic strategies that can circumvent antimicrobial resistance mechanisms. In this work, we demonstrate that host prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) production plays a regulatory role in the pathogenesis of B. pseudomallei. PGE2 promotes B. pseudomallei intracellular survival within macrophages and bacterial virulence in a mouse model of pneumonic melioidosis. PGE2-mediated immunosuppression of macrophage bactericidal effector functions is associated with increased arginase 2 (Arg2) expression and decreased nitric oxide (NO) production. Treatment with a commercially-available COX-2 inhibitor suppresses the growth of B. pseudomallei in macrophages and affords significant protection against rapidly lethal pneumonic melioidosis when administered post-exposure to B. pseudomallei-infected mice. COX-2 inhibition may represent a novel immunotherapeutic strategy to control infection with B. pseudomallei and other intracellular pathogens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infection with Burkholderia pseudomallei causes the disease melioidosis, which often presents as a serious suppurative infection that is typically fatal without intensive treatment and is a significant emerging infectious disease in Southeast Asia. Despite intensive research there is still much that remains unknown about melioidosis pathogenesis. New animal models of melioidosis are needed to examine novel aspects of pathogenesis as well as for the evaluation of novel therapeutics. The objective of the work presented here was to develop a subacute to chronic caprine model of melioidosis and to characterize the progression of disease with respect to clinical presentation, hematology, clinical microbiology, thoracic radiography, and gross and microscopic pathology. Disease was produced in all animals following an intratracheal aerosol of 104 CFU delivered, with variable clinical manifestations indicative of subacute and chronic disease. Bronchointerstitial pneumonia was apparent microscopically by day 2 and radiographically and grossly apparent by day 7 post infection (PI). Early lesions of bronchopneumonia soon progressed to more severe bronchointerstitial pneumonia with pyogranuloma formation. Extrapulmonary dissemination appeared to be a function of pyogranuloma invasion of pulmonary vasculature, which peaked around day 7 PI. Histopathology indicated that leukocytoclastic vasculitis was the central step in dissemination of B. pseudomallei from the lungs as well as in the establishment of new lesions. While higher doses of organism in goats can produce acute fatal disease, the dose investigated and resulting disease had many similarities to human melioidosis and may warrant further development to provide a model for the study of both natural and bioterrorism associated disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burkholderia pseudomallei is the etiological agent of melioidosis, a disease endemic in parts of Southeast Asia and Northern Australia. Currently there is no licensed vaccine against infection with this biological threat agent. In this study, we employed an immunoproteomic approach and identified bacterial Elongation factor-Tu (EF-Tu) as a potential vaccine antigen. EF-Tu is membrane-associated, secreted in outer membrane vesicles (OMVs), and immunogenic during Burkholderia infection in the murine model of melioidosis. Active immunization with EF-Tu induced antigen-specific antibody and cell-mediated immune responses in mice. Mucosal immunization with EF-Tu also reduced lung bacterial loads in mice challenged with aerosolized B. thailandensis. Our data support the utility of EF-Tu as a novel vaccine immunogen against bacterial infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]