Comparison of virulence between clinical and environmental Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates.

New strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were isolated from clinical and environmental settings in order to characterize the virulence properties of this opportunistic pathogen. P. aeruginosa was frequently recovered from oil-contaminated samples but not from non-oil-contaminated soils. The virulence of five environmental and five clinical strains of P. aeruginosa was tested using two different models, Drosophila melanogaster and Lactuca sativa var. capitata L. There was no difference in the virulence between the two groups of isolates in either of the models. Since environmental P. aeruginosa strains are used for bioaugmentation in bioremediation programs, the results presented here should be taken into account in the future design of degradative consortia and/or in establishing containment measures.