Prevalence and sequence diversity of a factor required for actin-based motility in natural populations of Burkholderia species

Abstract

Actin-based motility of the melioidosis pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei requires BimA. We report a high degree of conservation of bimA in 99 B. pseudomallei isolates from the area of endemicity. A geographically restricted subset of B. pseudomallei isolates harbored a B. mallei-like bimA allele (12.1%), confounding a differential diagnostic test based on amplification of species-specific bimA regions.