Companion animals are spillover hosts of the multidrug-resistant human extraintestinal Escherichia coli pandemic clones ST131 and ST1193
Published:
We use whole-genome sequencing to show that companion animals represent occasional spillover hosts rather than primary reservoirs for the E. coli sequence type (ST)131 lineage.
Abstract
Escherichia coli sequence types 131 (ST131) and 1193 are multidrug-resistant extraintestinal pathogens that have recently spread epidemically among humans and are occasionally isolated from companion animals. This study characterized a nationwide collection of fluoroquinolone-resistant (FQR) E. coli isolates from extraintestinal infections in Australian cats and dogs. For this, 59 cat and dog FQR clinical E. coli isolates (representing 6.9% of an 855-isolate collection) underwent PCR-based phylotyping and whole-genome sequencing (WGS). Isolates from commensal-associated phylogenetic groups A (14/59, 24%) and B1 (18/59, 31%) were dominant, with ST224 (10/59, 17%), and ST744 (8/59, 14%) predominating. Less prevalent were phylogenetic groups D (12/59, 20%), with ST38 (8/59, 14%) predominating, and virulence-associated phylogenetic group B2 (7/59, 12%), with ST131 predominating (6/7, 86%) and no ST1193 isolates identified. In a WGS-based comparison of 20 cat and dog-source ST131 isolates with 188 reference human and animal ST131 isolates, the cat and dog-source isolates were phylogenetically diverse. Although cat and dog-source ST131 isolates exhibited some minor sub-clustering, most were closely related to human-source ST131 strains. Furthermore, the prevalence of ST131 as a cause of FQR infections in Australian companion animals was relatively constant between this study and the 5-year-earlier study of Platell et al. (2010) (9/125 isolates, 7.2%). Thus, although the high degree of clonal commonality among FQR clinical isolates from humans vs. companion animals suggests the possibility of bi-directional between-species transmission, the much higher reported prevalence of ST131 and ST1193 among FQR clinical isolates from humans as compared to companion animals suggests that companion animals are spillover hosts rather than being a primary reservoir for these lineages.
Read the full publication here: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.01968
Data availability
Sequence read data has been submitted to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Sequence Read Archive (SRA) under BioProject PRJNA627752
Raw Illumina sequence read data have been deposited to the NCBI SRA under the accession numbers SRR11608154 to SRR11608173
The high-quality draft assemblies have been deposited to GenBank under the accession numbers JAHIDC000000000 to JAHIDU000000000 and JAHIDV000000000
Twitter thread
Our #research into #pandemic multidrug-resistant E. coli O25b:H4:ST131 is FINALLY out in @FrontMicrobiol‼️ Using WGS to show companion animals represent occasional spillover hosts rather than primary reservoirs for the ST131 lineage...a thread⬇️1/7
— Rhys White 🧬 (@RiboRhys) September 2, 2020
Paper👉https://t.co/IzApYeG68S pic.twitter.com/jFHj6195NR