Burkholderia thailandensis is a non-fermenting motile Gram-negative

Gram-negative

Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain crystal violet dye in the Gram staining protocol. In a Gram stain test, a counterstain is added after the crystal violet, coloring all Gram-negative bacteria with a red or pink color...

 bacillus that occurs naturally in soil. It is closely related to Burkholderia pseudomallei

Burkholderia pseudomallei

Burkholderia pseudomallei is a Gram-negative, bipolar, aerobic, motile rod-shaped bacterium. It infects humans and animals and causes the disease melioidosis. It is also capable of infecting plants....

, but unlike B. pseudomallei, it only rarely causes disease in humans or animals. The lethal inoculum is approximately 1000 times higher than for B. pseudomallei. It is usually distinguished from B. pseudomallei by its ability to assimilate arabinose

Arabinose

Arabinose is an aldopentose – a monosaccharide containing five carbon atoms, and including an aldehyde functional group.For biosynthetic reasons, most saccharides are almost always more abundant in nature as the "D"-form, or structurally analogous to D-glyceraldehyde.For sugars, the D/L...

. The phenotypic differences have been summarised by Woods (1999). B. thailandensis is sometimes used to model B. pseudomallei infection in mice because of similarities in the immune response. B. thailandensis does not require biosafety category 3 facilities and is not considered a biosecurity threat, which makes it easier to study and to work with.