OBJECTIVE  To screen and identify Burkholderia cepacia from 149 strains of contaminated microorganisms isolated from national cosmetics supervision and sampling inspection, Zhejiang provincial supervision and sampling inspection and administrative license inspection from 2017 to 2022. At the same time, the drug-resistance genes of Burkholderia cepacia were studied.

METHODS A total of 149 strains of contaminated microorganisms in cosmetics collected from 2017 to 2022 were resuscitated, isolated and screened by liquid enrichment method and Burkholderia cepacia selective agar(BCSA) plate streaking method. Quantitative real-time PCR(qPCR) was used to identify suspicious Burkholderia cepacia colonies on BCSA using specific Burkholderia cepacia complex primers and probes, further identification was carried out by using 16S rDNA sequencing technology. According to the identification results, the second generation sequencing technology was used to study the drug-resistance genes of Burkholderia cepacia.

RESULTS In this study, 10 strains of Burkholderia cepacia were identified from 149 strains of contaminated microorganisms in cosmetics. All of them belonged to Burkholderia cepacia complex, 26 drug-resistance genes were detected by second generation sequencing, the results suggested that the bacteria might be resistant to 33 antibiotics, including penicillin, polymyxin and macrolide, and 11 multi-drug resistance genes were detected, the mechanism of drug resistance was related to the production of efflux pumps. It was suggested that Burkholderia cepacia isolated from cosmetic products had some hidden danger of multi-drug resistance.

CONCLUSION A total of 10 strains of Burkholderia cepacia are identified from 149 strains of microorganisms contaminated in cosmetics. The analysis of drug-resistant genes indicate that the bacteria have potential safety risks of multi-drug resistance. It should be considered that the bacteria should be included in the microbial detection index after risk assessment.