Jodie Low Choy's research while affiliated with Charles Darwin University and other places

... Reports of melioidosis in marsupials are extremely rare [16]; however, fatal cases in captive or highly stressed animals have occurred [17]. Melioidosis cases in birds [18], primates [19], and reptiles [20], and outbreaks associated with zoos [21] and intensive livestock agriculture [22], support the notion that stressful conditions may trigger the onset of disease. Although there is no evidence of a sustained zoonotic transmission cycle for Burkholderia spp., indirect transmission from animals and animal products poses a tangible risk to human health, particularly to those with melioidosis risk factors [14]. ...

... Feco-oral transmission was felt to be unlikely due to the fact that B. pseudomallei was infrequently isolated from fecal samples of infected pigs. However, fecal shedding has been detected from wallabies and wild stock, suggesting it may be a means of expanding the geographical distribution of B. pseudomallei (Höger et al. 2016). Recent nonhuman primate models showed that ingestion of >6 x 10 6 cfu resulted in acute-febrile, lethal disease (Nelson et al. 2021). ...

... Species that have been infected include terrestrial and aquatic mammals, birds, and fish. Goats, sheep, pigs, and camels appear particularly susceptible, whereas dogs, cats, and cattle appear more resistant, but these may develop disease if they become immunocompromised (Choy et al. 2000). Sporadic cases or small outbreaks have been reported in various primates, marsupials, deer, buffalo, camels, llamas, zebras, horses, mules, rabbits, meerkats, rodents, iguanas, parrots, crocodiles, dolphins, and seals (Elschner et al. 2014;Sprague and Neubauer 2004). ...

... Although B. pseudomallei colonization of humans is rare (29,41), the bacterium has been found in the feces of domestic and wild animals including wallabies, horses, and chickens (42,43), and in the beak of a healthy native peaceful dove (Geopelia placida) (44). A strong association exists between B. pseudomallei presence in soil and disturbance by horses, chickens, and pigs (45). ...

... after wetting it with distilled water, and placed inside the Eppendorf tube and tightly closing, at -20 °C, to PCR detection, (S. F. Walton et al., 1999). ...

... Melioidosis has been reported in a wide-array of livestock and in domestic pets [9,10,12]. Surveillance from tropical Northern Australia and Thailand has also shown that sheep [15], camels [16] and alpacas [17] readily succumb to melioidosis, while goats have diverse presentations similar to humans [12,18] and pigs can often have asymptomatic internal infections [19]. ...

... We have collected and cultured B. pseudomallei isolates from P314's airways since this initial diagnosis to better understand the population dynamics in this unprecedented case. We have previously shown genetic diversity in variable-number tandem repeat loci among these isolates [26] and subsequently compared three P314-derived genomes to document some of the evolutionary changes over an 11.5-year period [25]. Here, we analyze and compare the genomes and phenotypic characteristics of 118 B. pseudomallei isolates sampled over a >16-year chronic carriage period from P314's airways, along with six closely-related isolates sampled from P314's home between two and four years after diagnosis. ...