Lecture 13 - Opportunistic Infections
1. Introduction
- Entry and multipliation require a breach in immunity
- Very poor or no horizontal spread
- Found in AIDS patients, immunosuppressed cancer patients, burn victims, smokers or drinkers with transient suppression of the mucociliary elevator, transplant recipients, and patients with diabetes
2. Pseudomonas aeruginosa
- Introduction
- Gram-negative bacillus with motility
- Requires only carbon and nitrogen for growth therefore ubiquitous in soil and water
- Oxidase-positive
- Fruity odor
- Encounter
- Asymptomatic carriage rate approximately 2%
- Tap water, contaminated vegetables, or hot tubs
- Causes 11% of hospital-acquired infections
- Entry
- Enter through burn, cut, puncture, or abrasion
- Pili adhere to epithelium a. binds respiratory cells more facilely in cystic fibrosis patients
- In normal patients, does not adhere well to our surfaces, but can stick to underlying tissue where organisms are killed by PMNs
- Spread/Multiplication
- If it multiplies successfully, can spread to neighboring tissues
- Dissemination aided by flagella, elastase, toxin A, and exoenzyme S
- Multiply extracellularly in patients with decreased neutrophil count
- In CF patients, alginate shields organism from immune system
- Damage
- Infection in skin leads to cellulitis
- Infection in urinary tract leads to UTIs
- Infection in the airways leads to pneumonia
- Infection in the eye causes corneal infection
- Invasion of the bloodstream can result in endocarditis, septic arthritis, or osteomyelitis
- Diagnosis and Identification
- Clinical presentation of ecthyma gangrenosum
- Easy to culture
- Virulence Factors
- Pili: attach to sites of epithelial damage
- Elastases: cleave transferrin for iron, ECM to facilitate dissemination, or antibodies to evade host immune response
- Alkaline phosphatase: interferes with gamma-interferon activity
- Phospholipase C: phosphate acquisition
- LPS: anti-phagocytic and anti-complement
- Exotoxin A: inhibits host protein synthesis by blocking elongation of amino acid chain a. kills PMNs
- Exotoxin S: ADP-ribosylates small G-proteins such as Ras
- Mucoid capsule: anchors bacteria to host, blocks clearance by mucociliary action, blocks phagocytosis, blocks antibody- and complement-mediated lysis
- Flagellum: motility
- Treatment
- Late-generation beta-lactams, fluoroquinolones and aminoglycosides
- Highly-resistant organism therefore treat with multiple antibiotics
- Outcome
- Endocarditis carries 50% mortality rate
- High-grade bacteremia in neutropenic patient carries 50-70% mortality rate
3. Legionella pneumophila
- Introduction
- Aerobic gram-negative bacillus with motility
- Intracellular pathogen of amoebae
- Encounter
- Found in ponds, lakes, hot springs, tap water, shower heads, humidifiers, and hot water tanks
- Entry
- Inhaled into lungs through aerosols from showers, air conditioners or humidifiers, or microaspirated while drinking infected water
- Coiling phagocytosis in alveolar macrophages
- Spread/Multiplication
- Associates with mitochondria and ribosomes in macrophage and mutliplies intracellularly
- Hematogenous dissemination leads to multiple organ dysfunction
- Damage
- Most of the damage is caused by host inflammatory response
- Legionnaire’s disease
- mild-severe pneomonia and fever, diarrhea, and vomiting
- possible mental status changes
- risk factors: cancer, diabetes, emphysema, immunosuppressive therapy, renal dialysis, and alcohol consumption
- Pontiac fever
- mild, self-limiting infection
- fevers, chills, headaches and malaise
- Diagnosis and Identification
- Clinical diagnosis based on history and pneumonia unresponse to normal treatment
- Culture on charcoal yeast extract agar
- Urine antigen test
- Treatment
- Erythomycin or tetracycline
- Outcome
- 15% fatality rate for Legionnaire’s disease

