Serratia Marcescens - History

History

Serratia marcescens was discovered in 1819 by Venetian pharmacist Bartolomeo Bizio, as the cause of an episode of blood-red discoloration of polenta in the city of Padua. Bizio named the organism four years later in honor of Serafino Serrati, a physicist who developed an early steamboat; the epithet marcescens (Latin for "decaying") was chosen because of the pigment's rapid deterioration (Bizio's observations led him to believe that the organism decayed into a mucilage-like substance upon reaching maturity). Serratia was later renamed Monas prodigiosus and Bacillus prodigiosus before Bizio's original name was restored in the 1920s.

Until the 1950s, S. marcescens was erroneously believed to be a nonpathogenic "saprophyte", and its reddish coloration was used in school experiments to track infections. It has also been used as a simulant in biological warfare tests by the United States Military. On September 26 and 27, 1950, the United States Navy conducted a secret experiment named "Operation Sea-Spray" in which some S. marcescens was released by bursting balloons of it over urban areas of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Although the Navy later claimed the bacteria were harmless, beginning on September 29, 11 patients at a local hospital developed very rare, serious urinary tract infections, and one of these individuals, Edward J. Nevin, died. Cases of pneumonia in San Francisco also increased after S. marcescens was released., The bacterium was also combined with phenol and an anthrax simulant and sprayed across south Dorset by US and UK military scientists as part of the DICE trials which ran from 1971 to 1975.

Since 1950, S. marcescens has steadily increased as a cause of human infection, with many strains resistant to multiple antibiotics. The first indications of problems with the influenza vaccine produced by Chiron Corporation in 2004 involved S. marcescens contamination.

Because of its red pigmentation, caused by expression of the pigment prodigiosin, and its ability to grow on bread, S. marcescens has been evoked as a naturalistic explanation of medieval accounts of the "miraculous" appearance of blood on the Eucharist that led to Pope Urban IV instituting the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264. This followed celebration of a mass at Bolsena in 1263, led by a Bohemian priest who had doubts concerning transubstantiation, or the turning of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ during the Mass. During the Mass, the Eucharist appeared to bleed and each time the priest wiped away the blood, more would appear. While Serratia possibly could generate a single appearance of red pigment, it is unclear how it could have generated more pigment after each wiping, leaving this proposed explanation open to doubt. This event is celebrated in a fresco in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican City, painted by Raphael.

In early 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a nationwide recall of one lot of Pre-Filled Heparin Lock Flush Solution USP. The heparin IV flush syringes had been found to be contaminated with Serratia marcescens, which resulted in patient infections. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed growth of S. marcescens from several unopened syringes of this product.

Serratia marcescens has also been linked to 19 cases in Alabama hospitals in 2011, including ten deaths. All of the patients involved were receiving total parenteral nutrition at the time, and this is being investigated as a possible source of the outbreak.