美国Brookhaven国家实验室、爱尔兰科克大学和奥地利Graz技术大学的科学家发现，植物中常见的一种细菌和某种住院患者机会性感染相关细菌之间存在极大的相似之处。科学家称这一发现对生物技术具有重要影响，因为这种植物细菌在一系列生物技术中被应用。
Daniel van der Lelie及其同事对两种Stenotrophomonas maltophilia细菌进行了对比。Stenotrophomonas细菌具有多种功能，并且能适应不同的环境。某些菌种能导致血液和肺部感染，而另一些则能促进植物生长。研究人员鉴定出能使两种细菌对诸多抗生素产生抗性的基因。据van der Lelie称，这表明抗生素抗性是该类细菌核基因组的一部分，而并非医院中那种细菌的特有性状。他警告说，尽管Stenotrophomonas已经表现了一定的潜力，比如促进植物生长、保护植物免受病原体侵袭以及生产蛋白药物和酶等，但在生物技术中需谨慎应用这种细菌。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Nature Reviews Microbiology 7, 514-525 (July 2009) | doi:10.1038/nrmicro2163
The versatility and adaptation of bacteria from the genus Stenotrophomonas
Robert P. Ryan1, Sebastien Monchy2, Massimiliano Cardinale3, Safiyh Taghavi2, Lisa Crossman4, Matthew B. Avison5, Gabriele Berg3, Daniel van der Lelie2 & J. Maxwell Dow2
The genus Stenotrophomonas comprises at least eight species. These bacteria are found throughout the environment, particularly in close association with plants. Strains of the most predominant species, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, have an extraordinary range of activities that include beneficial effects for plant growth and health, the breakdown of natural and man-made pollutants that are central to bioremediation and phytoremediation strategies and the production of biomolecules of economic value, as well as detrimental effects, such as multidrug resistance, in human pathogenic strains. Here, we discuss the versatility of the bacteria in the genus Stenotrophomonas and the insight that comparative genomic analysis of clinical and endophytic isolates of S. maltophilia has brought to our understanding of the adaptation of this genus to various niches.
1 BIOMERIT Research Centre, Department of Microbiology, BioSciences Institute, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
2 Brookhaven National Laboratory, Biology Department, Upton, New York 11973-5000, USA.
3 Institute for Environmental Biotechnology, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria.
4 Pathogen Sequencing Unit, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK.
5 Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Bristol, School of Medical Sciences, University Walk, Bristol, BS8 1TD, UK.
