Search

Data for 'The effect of metal remediation on the virulence and antimicrobial resistance of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa' published in Evolutionary Applications. This tests whether liming reduces selection by metals for antibiotic resistance and virulence. In all datasets, when lime = 0 the vial was not limed, when it =1 it was limed. This is the same for shaken coulmns. Copper resistance Optical density readings. Each column is a well of a 96-well plate; each row a reading. Use the deposited code to associate wells with the treatments and media Iron fe2 = the amount of Fe2+ in the samples. feT = the total amount of available iron (i.e. Fe2+ + Fe3+) Pa amr Control is the number of colonies on plain agar, antibiotic columns are the number of colonies on agar containing that antibiotic. tcontrol should be used for trimethoprim and ampicillin as they were done seperatly to cefotaxime. Pa density pseudo = the number of colonies. See code for how to convert these to per 1 mL. pH data pH is final pH Siderophores Sample shows well id from a 96-well plate; see code for how to split this into replicates. Pyoverdin is the measure of pyoverdine using the OD reader, od is the optical density at 600nm to give a proxy for population density, cas is the reading given by the cas assay and shows total siderophore production. Virulence Sample = a population, with each sample row showing one injected larave (20 per sample). stime is the time of death. censor shows status of larvae (1 = dead, 0 = alive). This dataset also contains the natural microbial community too (pseudo = 0).

Virus host shifts, where a virus transmits to and infects a novel host species, are a major source of emerging infectious disease. Genetic similarity between eukaryotic host species has been shown to be an important determinant of the outcome of virus host shifts, but it is unclear if this is the case for prokaryotes where anti-virus defences can be transmitted by horizontal gene transfer and evolve rapidly. Here, we measure the susceptibility of 64 strains of Staphylococcaceae bacteria (48 strains of Staphylococcus aureus and 16 non-S. aureus species spanning 2 genera) to the bacteriophage ISP, which is currently under investigation for use in phage therapy. Using three methods-plaque assays, optical density (OD) assays, and quantitative (q)PCR-we find that the host phylogeny explains a large proportion of the variation in susceptibility to ISP across the host panel. These patterns were consistent in models of only S. aureus strains and models with a single representative from each Staphylococcaceae species, suggesting that these phylogenetic effects are conserved both within and among host species. We find positive correlations between susceptibility assessed using OD and qPCR and variable correlations between plaque assays and either OD or qPCR, suggesting that plaque assays alone may be inadequate to assess host range. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the phylogenetic relationships between bacterial hosts can generally be used to predict the susceptibility of bacterial strains to phage infection when the susceptibility of closely related hosts is known, although this approach produced large prediction errors in multiple strains where phylogeny was uninformative. Together, our results demonstrate the ability of bacterial host evolutionary relatedness to explain differences in susceptibility to phage infection, with implications for the development of ISP both as a phage therapy treatment and as an experimental system for the study of virus host shifts.

This file contains code used to obtain the results and statistical methods used to analysed community composition, alpha and beta diversity, and results of adonis PERMANOVA runs on the whole experiment and on individual community level.

Microplastics are the most prevalent type of plastic pollutant in the aquatic environment and frequently coexist in environmental compartments with antimicrobial resistant (AMR) bacteria, human pathogens and antimicrobial residues, particularly in faecal contaminated settings. When present in the environment, microplastics become colonised by diverse polymicrobial biofilms known as the 'Plastisphere', which can be distinct from the surrounding environment and natural debris. Microplastic associated communities have also been found to act as an important platform for horizontal gene transfer of AMR genes and there are concerns that plastic particles may enrich and disseminate AMR pathogens, potentially increasing human and animal exposure. Using both culture- and molecular-based microbiological methods, this research investigated and compared biofilm and free-living bacterial communities following incubation of environmentally aged microplastics and natural or inert substrate controls, inoculated with a natural sewage community. Selective agar plating and qPCR for 16S rRNA and a widely adopted genetic marker for AMR (intI1) were used to calculate phenotypic resistance prevalence of faecal coliforms and a community wide resistance prevalence, respectively. Escherichia coli phylogenetic groups were also identified using a pre-described PCR protocol, which enabled the generation of a pathogen prevalence within particle and free-living communities. The results from this study suggest that surfaces promote the attachment of AMR and pathogenic bacteria, and the type of surface matters when selecting for these communities. The outcomes from this research will help to gain a better understanding of the risks posed by microplastics and associated AMR bacteria. Given that microplastics are extremely prevalent and persistent, this may have significant consequences on human, animal and environmental health. Also see: https://micro2022.sciencesconf.org/426802/document, In MICRO 2022, Online Atlas Edition: Plastic Pollution from MACRO to nano