Mildred's Story

Bacteria Causing Urinary Tract Infections Can Originate In Meat ...

In young women, Staphylococcus saprophyticus is a main cause of urinary tract infections (UTI), reaching 20% prevalence. Understanding the epidemiology of this microorganism can help identify its origin, distribution, causes, and risk factors.

Now, ITQB NOVA researchers led by Maria Miragaia showed evidence that Staphylococcus saprophyticus can originate in food, namely in the meat-production chain.

Europe is the world's second-biggest producer of pork, the most favored meat type in these countries. One of the contaminants of that meat is S. Saprophyticus, which is found also in the environment, the gut and rectal flora of pigs, and in the human gastrointestinal tract, vagina, and perineum.

In the study published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, by using a combination of phenotypic, genomic, and pan-genome wide association approaches, researchers identified two different lineages (G and S) of S. Saprophyticus.

The lineage G, from food origin and transmitted to humans by contact with food products, and lineage S, from human origin. Both are associated with disease and may be transmitted directly or indirectly between persons within the community, showing not only a local but an extensive geographic distribution.

In order to understand if these bacteria causing urinary tract infections could be related to the ones in pork, the research group looked at S. Saprophyticus from a slaughterhouse and compared them to those causing human urinary tract infections. The team analyzed bacteria collected from UTI worldwide over 20 years, and from UTI and pork meat production chain in Portugal.

The results revealed that bacteria from the slaughterhouse (equipment, meat, workers colonisation) were similar to human UTI bacteria and had the same antibiotic resistance profile.

Although S. Saprophyticus pig's colonisation rate was extremely low (1%), 35% of slaughterhouse samples were contaminated. The presence of an antiseptic resistance gene (qacA) by all the lineage G bacteria could be part of the explanation for the ineffective cleaning procedures that were used.

S. Saprophyticus strains of animal origin (lineage G) enters the slaughterhouse through food animals, persist on the equipment, disseminate and contaminate the meat processing chain and humans. Human colonization is a crucial step for the later occurrence of UTI."

Opeyemi Lawal, Study First Author, ITQB NOVA

Additionally, by studying genomic data of bacteria collected from patients attending three hospitals in the Lisbon area, the researchers were able to clearly understand that the transmission of these pathogenic bacteria from both lineages (G and S) occurs between persons within the community.

With this deep-structured analysis, researchers were also able to identify putative new virulence factors for this unexplored bacterium.

The team will continue to search for reservoirs of this bacterium in humans and animals, and to study the mechanisms of S. Saprophyticus dissemination and disease to provide the groundwork towards strategies to combat this pathogen, "This a clear example of how food manipulation can impact in human health, and how important it is to educate consumers regarding good individual hygiene practices to avoid spreading of infectious diseases", says Maria Miragaia, head of the Bacterial Evolution and Molecular Epidemiology Lab.

"This adds to the list of bacteria that are transmitted to humans through contact with animals and animal-derived food. But the exact mechanisms associated to the conversion from a colonizer to an infectious agent remains to be clarified", adds Henrik Westh from the Copenhagen University Hospital - Amager and Hvidovre, University of Copenhagen (Denmark).

Source:

Journal reference:

Lawal, O. U., et al. (2021) Foodborne Origin and Local and Global Spread of Staphylococcus saprophyticus Causing Human Urinary Tract Infections. Emerging Infectious Diseases. Doi.Org/10.3201/eid2703.200852.

Bacteria's Shapeshifting Behavior Clue To New Treatments For Urinary ...

Urinary tract infections are both very common and potentially very dangerous. More than half of all Australian women will suffer from a UTI in their lifetime, and nearly one in three women will have an infection requiring treatment with antibiotics before the age of 24.

Around 80 per cent of UTIs are caused by uropathogenic E. Coli (UPEC), which is increasingly resistant to antibiotics. E. Coli-related death due to antimicrobial resistance is the leading cause of bacterial fatalities worldwide.

In a bid to aid discovery of new treatment options, researchers at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) are using state-of-the-art microscopy to pinpoint how these bacteria spread and multiply.

Dr Bill Söderström and Associate Professor Iain Duggin, of the Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection at UTS, said their latest research examined the shapeshifting behaviour of UPEC. During a UTI infection cycle, the bacteria form spaghetti-like filaments hundreds of times their normal lengths before reverting to their original form.

The study, which is published in Nature Communications, used a human bladder cell infection model to generate the filaments, and look at their reversal back to rod shape.

"While we don't fully understand why they do this extreme lifestyle make-over, we know they must revert to their original size before they can reinfect new bladder cells," Dr Söderström said.

"We used advanced microscopy to follow two key cell division proteins and their localisation dynamics during reversal. We found that the normal rules for regulation of cell division in bacteria does not fully apply in filaments," Dr Söderström said.

"By giving the first clues into how the reversal of filamentation is regulated during infection, we may be laying the foundation for identifying new ways to combat UTIs."

Associate Professor Duggin said the long filaments formed by the bacteria appeared to break open the infected human cells, through a previously unknown mechanism called infection-related filamentation (IRF).

"The devastating eruption of these bacteria from the cells of the bladder that they invade probably contributes to the extensive damage and pain experienced during a UTI," Associate Professor Duggin said.

"Our goal is to identify why and how the bacteria do this remarkable feat in the hope of enabling alternative treatments or preventions."

FACTS ABOUT URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS

● Around 50-60 per cent of all women will have a UTI during their lifetime

● One in four women who have had a UTI will experience another within 12 months

● Nearly 1 in 3 women will develop a UTI that needs treatment with antibiotics before the age of 24

● More than one course of antibiotics is often needed due to increased antibiotic resistance in bacteria

● Urinary tract infections acquired in hospital (eg, through catheters) account for 380,000 extra hospital bed days a year

● Complicated UTIs have a mortality rate as high as one in three

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