Specificity
This antibody is specific for serotype 5C and does not react with other species. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative, aerobic, rod-shaped bacterium with unipolar motility. It is an opportunistic pathogen of plants and humans and can infect the urinary tract, respiratory and gastrointestinal system, soft tissues, bones and joints leading to severe systemic infections of immunosuppressed patients in hospitals. P. aeruginosa secretes a variety of pigments, including pyocyanin (blue-green), fluorescein (pyoverdin), and pyorubin (red-brown). This organism can achieve anaerobic growth with nitrate as a terminal electron acceptor, and, in its absence, it is also able to ferment arginine by substrate-level phosphorylation. Adaptation to microaerobic or anaerobic environments is essential for certain lifestyles of P. aeruginosa, such as during lung infection in cystic fibrosis patients where thick layers of alginate surrounding bacterial mucoid cells can limit the diffusion of oxygen.
