NONFERMENTATIVE
displayed in your TSI or even in your
GRAM - BACILLI
- Oxidase positive
- Non-glucose fermenter because instead of
fermentation they are oxidizers
Includes:
1. Pseudomonas aeruginosa
2. Acinetobacter spp.
3. Stenotrophomonas maltophilia
4. Burkholderia cepacia
Characteristics:
- no uniform biochemical
characteristic but what is common with
them is that they are oxidized positive
- most of them or oxidizers
rather than fermenters
- they produce lactose negative colonies on
selective media such as McConkey agar
okay
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
- is a strictly aerobic
- catalase positive
- Oxidase positive
- gram-negative bacilli
- motile by a means of polar flagella
- usually habiting or inhabiting moist
environment that's why this is a very
common cause of nosocomial infection
Ex. hospital oxygen
- pulmonary infection occurs commonly in
patients with cystic fibrosis
- also associated with “erythma
gangrenosum”, this happens when in severe
cases of bacteremia the organism will invade
and destroy the walls of your subcutaneous
blood vessels, so the result of that is the
formation of cutaneous papules that will
become black and necrotic
Biochemical characteristic:
- musty grape-like or corn tortilla odor
- round or ground glass appearance on its
colonies and sheep blood agar
- also produced two pigments
1. Pyoverdin- metallic sheen
2. Piocyanin-blue green flourescent pigment
- will produce a neutral butt in an alkaline
slant in TSIA
- yellow greenish
- fluorescent and water soluble
- Most common pigment
why neutral butt? because it's not a glucose
fermenter
- able to grow a 42 degrees celsius
“some of it's pigment or sheens look can be also
Tryptic soy broth “
blue greenish - Piocyanin
reddish - Pyoverdin
- it grows on Mcconkey but it produces
colorless colonies
“ there's at the third pigment on the spiral brain
which Pyorubin is more or less must a counterpart
of Pyocyanin wc is metallic, it's just that it is
non-fluorescent and water-soluble and can be
reddish”
how will we confirm this is pseudomonas?
of course through an Oxidative-fermentative (OF)
medium or the Oxidative Fermentative Test
- Hugh and Leifson’s medium
- indicator is Bromthymol blue
- has a low protein to carbohydrate ratio so
that it would prevent the neutralization of
weak acid by alkaline end products
there are three tubes,
1. Left tube- contains the basal medium alone
2. Glucose without oil- exposed to air
3. Glucose with mineral oil - create an
anaerobic environment
“if the tube without mineral oil turns
yellow=oxidizer (meaning there’s acid production”
No oxygen= can’t use glucose; only fermenters but
in this case of pseudomonas in the case of
pseudomonas- it is an oxidizer rather than a
fermenter
“now if this is a fermenter instead not an oxidizer
both of the tubes with and without a mineral oil will
turn yellow, why ? even with oxygen a fermenter
can still use oxygen and called as facultatively
anaerobic they can utilize sugar with or without
oxygen so they will produce both a yellow tube
in the one without mineral oil and the one with the
one without mineral oil “
in the case of pseudomonas, it's only the one
without mineral oil that will turn yellow
Acinetobacter
- short, rod-shaped spherical
- Often appear in pairs
- nonmotile
- oxidase negative (confused with enterics)
- can be often difficult to decolorize
how to differentiate them from your enterics?
- some instances they can produce purple - can be also isolated using pseudomonas
colonies cepacia agar which has an oxidative
- they are also nitrate reduction negative fermentative base agar especially for
(remember that enterics are nitrate reduction respiratory secretion from patients with
positive, meaning they can convert nitrate to nitrite) cystic fibrosis
- while an acinetobacter is not able to reduce
nitrate to nitrite, it oxidase negative, and - Ashdown medium is also used isolated B.
aside from that this is also not a glucose pseudomallei for sepsis
fermenter but rather are glucose oxidizer
“i forgot Burkholdera in melli doses?? in humans,
how do you differentiate it from pseudomonas it's glanders in horses”
aeruginosa?
- Its oxidase-positive and the pigment Stenotophomonas maltophilia
- significant nosocomial pathogen
A. baumanii Risk factors:
- glucose oxidizer 1. Mechanical ventilation
- Non hemolytic 2. Broad spectrum antibiotics
3. Catheterization
A. lwoffi 4. Neutropenia
- Non glucose oxidizer - oxidized negative
- Non hemolytic how to differentiate it?
- positive DNAse
- not ferment glucose
Burkholdera cepacia
- aerobic “an interesting fact about your stenotrophomonas
- Non-spore forming multophilia is that it can of course aside from
- Gram negative rods growing in your sheep blood agar, it will have
- All are motile bc of their polar flagella “chartreuse to lavender green colonies”
except for B. mallei and ammonia produces an “ammonia odor”
- oxidase positive - resistant to a lot of antimicrobials except
- catalase positive trimethoprim or sxt??
- produce lactose negative colonies so
colorless
“to differentiate it from acinetobacter you
can inoculate it on your chocolate agar, it will
produce green pigment”
- can also the carboxylate lysine
- very important pathogen together with
pseudomonas aeruginosa (patients with
cystic fibrosis) and for B. cepacia (patients
with the chronic granulomatous disease or
CGD- neutrophil can’t completely
phagocyte bacteria, so their recurrent
infection)
- will ferment lactose, it's not a glucose
fermenter it's an oxidizer but it will ferment
lactose and it will appear yellow while the
non-fermenters will appear green which is
really the case of pseudomonas

Burkholdera pseudomallei
- agent of Melloidosis or what they call the
Vietnamese time bomb because before this
has been used to kind of infect during the
vietnam war
- Acquired via inhalation or contact through
cut or abraded skin