Klebsiella pneumoniae

All unapproved Citizendium articles may contain errors of fact, bias, grammar etc. A version of an article is unapproved unless it is marked as citable with a dedicated green template at the top of the page, as in this version of the 'Biology' article. Citable articles are intended to be of reasonably high quality. The participants in the Citizendium project make no representations about the reliability of Citizendium articles or, generally, their suitability for any purpose. This article is currently being developed as part of an Eduzendium student project in the framework of a course entitled Microbiology 201 at Queens College, CUNY. The course homepage can be found at CZ:Biol 201: General Microbiology. For the course duration, the article is closed to outside editing. Of course you can always leave comments on the discussion page. The anticipated date of course completion is May 21, 2009. One month after that date at the latest, this notice shall be removed. Besides, many other Citizendium articles welcome your collaboration!

Classification

Klebsiella pnemoniae
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Eubacteria Phylum: Proteobacteria Class: Gamma Proteobacteria Order: Pseudomonadales Family: Pseudomonadaceae Genus: Pseudomonas Species: putida
Binomial name
Pseudomonas putida

Klebsiella pnemoniae is a species of Genus: Klebsiella. The Family: Enterobacteriaceae. The Order: Enterobacteriales. The Class: Gammaproteobacteria. The Phylum: Proteobacteria. and The Domain: Bacteria.

Image of Klebsiella pnemoniae

Image is from Microbiologia! [1]

Description and significance

K. pneumoniae is a gram negative bacteria. It is faculative aerobic, meaning it is has characteristic features of becoming aerobic and anaerobic. It is rod shaped and its dimensions are 2 X 0.5 micro meter. K. pneumoniae is also known as nasty bacteria. Klebsiella (pneumoniae) is commonly found in bacteria directed pneumoniae patients. Friedlancer C. Uber was the first person to discover that Klebsiella is a pathogenic bacteria that causes pneumoniae (2). The 160nm thick fine fiber capsule makes the bacteria pathogenic (3)[2]. This bacteria is found in different places in human body such as gastrointestinal tract and nasopharynx. (4) Naturally it is found in the soil, water, vegetables and sewage.

Genome structure

There are lots of research being done on sequencing the genome. Some places such as (Genome Sequencing Center)at Washington University in St. Louis and (PLOS genetics). At Genome Sequencing Center the genome was named Klebsiella pneumoniae subsp. pneumoniae MGH 78578 ATCC 700721 [3] It was isolated from 66 year old male patient in 1994. It contained one chromosome of 5.3Mbp. There are plasmids pKPN3, pKPN4, pKPN5, pKPN6 and pKPN7 the plasmid length afre respectively 0.18, 0.11, 0.089, 0.0043, and 0.0035 Mbp. Similarly, at PLOS genetics Kp342 was studied. It contained one chromose of 5,641,239 bp. There are two plasmids pKP187 of length 182,922 bp. and pKP91 of length 91,096 bp (5)[4]. The whole genome is sequenced. At both places the DNA was circular.

Cell structure and metabolism

Cell Structure

Klebsiella pneumoniae contains Lipopolysaccharide and capsular polysaccharide capsule around the cell. Capsular polysaccharide are responsible for part of ribosomal immunoprotective activity. It also protects bacteria from phagocytosis. Klebsiella pneumoniae has memberanous vesicles that containe lipopolysaccharide, proteins, and lipids which help capsular polysaccharide with immunoprotective activity.

References

(1)

(2)Friedlander C. Uber die scizomyceten bei der acuten fibrosen pneumonie. Arch Pathol Anat Physiol Klin Med 1882. 87:319-24

(3)Amako, K., Meno, Y., and Takade, A. "Fine Structures of the Capsules of Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli K1". Journal of Bacteriology. 1988. Volume 170, No. 10. p. 4960-4962[5]

(4)Casewell M, Talsania H G. Predominance of certain klebsiella capsular types in hospitals in the United Kingdom. J Infect. 1979;1:77–79.

(5)Derrick E. Fouts, Heather L. Tyler, Robert T. DeBoy, Sean Daugherty, Qinghu Ren, Jonathan H. Badger, Anthony S. Durkin, Heather Huot, Susmita Shrivastava, Sagar Kothari, Robert J. Dodson, Yasmin Mohamoud, Hoda Khouri, Luiz F. W. Roesch, Karen A. Krogfelt, Carsten Struve, Eric W. Triplett, Barbara A. Methe. "Complete Genome Sequence of the N2-Fixing Broad Host Range Endophyte Klebsiella pneumoniae 342 and Virulence Predictions Verified in Mice".