King (who isolated Kingella kingae in 1960) was studying unclassified bacteria associated with pediatric meningitis at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, when she isolated an organism (CDC group IIa) that she named Flavobacterium meningosepticum (Flavobacterium means "the yellow bacillus" in Latin; meningosepticum likewise means "associated with meningitis and sepsis").
[4] Two species of Elizabethkingia have recently been found to be abundant on the leaf and root surfaces of the tropical tree Gnetum gnemon in Malaysia.
[citation needed] Under a microscope, E. meningoseptica appears as slender, slightly curved rods which are nonmotile and are negative by Gram stain.
[citation needed] E. meningoseptica may show colistin-resistant and vancomycin-sensitive growth, which is paradoxic for a Gram-negative bacterium, but resembles Burkholderia cepacia, which is also a nonfermenter and does not grow well on MacConkey agar.
Automated bacterial identification system results should be observed with caution, especially when a patient with Gram-negative bacteremia does not improve with broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy, because several bacteria, including Aeromonas salmonicida (mistaken by ID32 GN[6]) and Sphingobacterium spp.
[citation needed] E. meningoseptica predominantly causes outbreaks of meningitis in premature newborns and infants in neonatal intensive care units of underdeveloped countries.
[11] This bacterium is usually multiresistant to antibiotics typically prescribed for treating Gram-negative bacterial infections, including extended-spectrum beta-lactam agents (due to production by most strains of two betalactamases: one ESBL and one class B carbapenem-hydrolyzing metallolactamase), aminoglycosides, tetracycline, and chloramphenicol.
[13] At the 2006 meeting of the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes, the organization's subcommittee on the taxonomy of Flavobacterium and Cytophaga-like bacteria named J.-F. Bernardet and B. Bruun as two key authorities on this bacterium.