Distribution of soil and clinical Burkholderia pseudomallei isolates in Myanmar by using MLST

Burkholderia pseudomallei can be identified as Gram-negative bacillus without spore-forming in an environment such as soil and stagnant water. Human factors and climate changes make the incidence of melioidosis higher. Soil with high moisture and clay-rich is a suitable residence for B. pseudomallei. Twenty-one isolates of B. pseudomallei were collected and performed by multilocus sequence typing. Among them, eight novel sequence types (STs) of B. pseudomallei were found, while the rest show known STs. Interestingly, ST 56 from two patients was identified as the same region, while ST 90 showed local and global distribution. Among six ST 90 B. pseudomallei, the three isolates were from soil and patients. Clinical ST 90 isolates were traced in the same region as soil ST 90 isolates. Those isolates may correlate with each other by using multilocus sequence typing (MLST) cost-effectively. However, it still needs to prove its correct relatedness. This study pointed out the reasonable assumption of Burkholderia pseudomallei for local and global distribution in Myanmar.