The resilience of a hospital-associated bacterium dates back over a century

New study provides a further emphasis to the importance of monitoring the microbiota of patients who are hospitalised to detect individuals carrying hospital-associated strains as early as possible.
Enterococcus faecalis is an intestinal bacterium that colonizes a wide variety of host species and is a common cause of sepsis and heart inflammation. E. faecalis is also known as a hospital-associated bacterial species, with related infections that are often difficult to treat, as some strains are resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics.
The researchers combined old and modern clinical specimens, specimens from healthy humans and animals, the state-of-the-art Nanopore DNA sequencing technique and novel analysis techniques developed by Corander’s group. This enabled them to uncover a number of features associated particularly with bacterial strains that have taken root in hospitals.
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