Dipartimento di Produzioni Vegetali, del Suolo e dell'Ambiente Agroforestale (DIPSA), Firenze, Italy.
J Mass Spectrom. 2011 Oct;46(10):1051-9. doi: 10.1002/jms.1987.
Bacteria belonging to the Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) are significant pathogens in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) patients and are resistant to a plethora of antibiotics. In this context, microorganisms from Antarctica are interesting because they produce antimicrobial compounds inhibiting the growth of other bacteria. This is particularly true for bacteria isolated from Antarctic sponges. The aim of this work was to characterize a set of Antarctic bacteria for their ability to produce new natural drugs that could be exploited in the control of infections in CF patients by Bcc bacteria. Hence, 11 bacterial strains allocated to different genera (e.g., Pseudoalteromonas, Arthrobacter and Psychrobacter) were tested for their ability to inhibit the growth of 21 Bcc strains and some other human pathogens. All these bacteria completely inhibited the growth of most, if not all, Bcc strains, suggesting a highly specific activity toward Bcc strains. Experimental evidences showed that the antimicrobial compounds are small volatile organic compounds, and are constitutively produced via an unknown pathway. The microbial volatile profile was obtained by SPME-GC-MS within the m/z interval of 40-450. Solid phase micro extraction technique affords the possibility to extract the volatile compounds in head space with a minimal sample perturbation. Principal component analysis and successive cluster discriminant analysis was applied to evaluate the relationships among the volatile organic compounds with the aim of classifying the microorganisms by their volatile profile. These data highlight the potentiality of Antarctic bacteria as novel sources of antibacterial substances to face Bcc infections in CF patients.
伯克霍尔德氏菌复合群（Bcc）中的细菌是囊性纤维化（CF）患者的重要病原体，对多种抗生素具有耐药性。在这种情况下，来自南极洲的微生物很有趣，因为它们产生抑制其他细菌生长的抗菌化合物。这对于从南极海绵中分离出来的细菌尤其如此。这项工作的目的是对一组南极细菌进行特征描述，以研究它们产生新的天然药物的能力，这些药物可用于控制 CF 患者感染 Bcc 细菌。因此，测试了 11 株分配到不同属（例如假交替单胞菌、节杆菌和Psychrobacter）的细菌，以研究它们抑制 21 株 Bcc 菌株和其他一些人类病原体生长的能力。所有这些细菌都完全抑制了大多数（如果不是全部）Bcc 菌株的生长，这表明它们对 Bcc 菌株具有高度特异性的活性。实验证据表明，抗菌化合物是小挥发性有机化合物，通过未知途径连续产生。微生物挥发性图谱通过 SPME-GC-MS 在 m/z 间隔 40-450 内获得。固相微萃取技术可以在最小的样品干扰下从顶空提取挥发性化合物。主成分分析和连续聚类判别分析用于评估挥发性有机化合物之间的关系，旨在根据挥发性图谱对微生物进行分类。这些数据突出了南极细菌作为新型抗菌物质来源的潜力，可用于治疗 CF 患者的 Bcc 感染。
