An environmental water-and-soil bacterium that mainly causes infections in hospital patients and damaged lungs. Explore its illustrative 3D model, human context, and sources.
CDC describes Pseudomonas as a group of bacteria commonly found in the environment, in soil and water, and states that P. aeruginosa can cause infections in the blood, lungs (pneumonia), urinary tract or other parts of the body after surgery. Patients in healthcare settings are at highest risk, especially people on ventilators, people with catheters, and people with open wounds from surgery or burns. Baron’s Medical Microbiology describes a Gram-negative rod of 0.5 to 0.8 by 1.5 to 3.0 micrometres that is motile by a single polar flagellum, usually carries pili, and produces pigments including pyocyanin. Healthy people occasionally get a short-lived skin rash from contaminated hot tubs; serious disease is largely an opportunistic, healthcare-associated problem rather than an everyday community infection.
The same organism causes a mild, self-limiting rash in healthy swimmers and life-threatening pneumonia or bloodstream infection in ventilated, catheterised, burned or immunocompromised patients. Risk here depends on exposure route and host condition, not on the organism alone. CDC estimated 32,600 multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa infections among hospitalized patients and 2,700 deaths in the United States in 2017; those are estimates for a resistant subset in one country and year, not an individual risk score.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa · A representative straight rod with one long polar flagellum and much shorter attachment pili. No alginate layer is assigned. This is a species-informed teaching diagram; colours, proportions, envelope spacing and internal detail are illustrative. The model uses muted illustrative colours; stains, colony pigments and microscopy colourization are not natural cell colours. Anatomy is enlarged for phone viewing. Morphology reference: Chapter 27 · Pseudomonas · morphology, flagellum, pili and pigments.
Source check: 2026-09-20. Educational content; independent scientific review remains pending.