Cartography of opportunistic pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes in a tertiary hospital environment
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Although disinfection is key to infection control, the colonization patterns and resistomes of hospital-environment microbes remain underexplored. We report the first extensive genomic characterization of microbiomes, pathogens and antibiotic resistance cassettes in a tertiary-care hospital, from repeated sampling (up to 1.5 years apart) of 179 sites associated with 45 beds. Deep shotgun metagenomics unveiled distinct ecological niches of microbes and antibiotic resistance genes characterized by biofilm-forming and human-microbiome-influenced environments with corresponding patterns of spatiotemporal divergence. Quasi-metagenomics with nanopore sequencing provided thousands of high-contiguity genomes, phage and plasmid sequences (>60% novel), enabling characterization of resistome and mobilome diversity and dynamic architectures in hospital environments. Phylogenetics identified multidrug-resistant strains as being widely distributed and stably colonizing across sites. Comparisons with clinical isolates indicated that such microbes can persist in hospitals for extended periods (>8 years), to opportunistically infect patients. These findings highlight the importance of characterizing antibiotic resistance reservoirs in hospitals and establish the feasibility of systematic surveys to target resources for preventing infections.
Date Issued
2020-06
Date Acceptance
2020-04-20
Citation
Nature Medicine, 2020, 26 (6), pp.941-951
ISSN
1078-8956
Publisher
Nature Research
Start Page
941
End Page
951
Journal / Book Title
Nature Medicine
Volume
26
Issue
6
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000538976400005&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Subjects
ACQUIRED INFECTION
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Cell Biology
CLUSTER
GENOMES
INTENSIVE-CARE-UNIT
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Medicine, Research & Experimental
PREVENTION
Research & Experimental Medicine
Science & Technology
STAPHYLOCOCCUS-AUREUS
SURFACES
TRANSMISSION
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2020-06-08