Ideal Growth Conditions for Elizabethkingia meningoseptica

Abstract

Elizabethkingia meningoseptica is a Gram-negative pathogen that demonstrates extreme multi-drug resistance. To date, there have been no studies examining which bacteriological media is best to grow this organism in. Out of 5 different media we found that E. meningoseptica grew best in heart infusion broth and both 30°C and 37°C. Due to the presence of multiple genes encoding beta -lactamases and carbapenemases in the E. meningoseptica genome, we also wanted to test if this organism could grow in the presence of the carbapenem, imipenem. As expected, the organism grew relatively well at a low imipenem concentration (8 μg/mL), compared to higher concentrations of this drug. This latter experimental data will be used to define imipenem concentration to be used to characterize the imipenem-induced transcriptome of this organism in order to identify which of the ~ 20 beta-lactamase genes are induced by imipenem challenge.