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Zoonoses Research Unit (ZRU)
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ZRU Salmonella Surveillance
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One of the characteristics of Salmonella epidemiology is a
pattern of dissemination of epidemic clones, many of which are
multi-drug resistant. Certain subtypes of Salmonella have
disseminated widely, most notably DT104 which disseminated during
the 1990s globally, and Salmonella MDR Newport
which has become prominent in cattle and humans in recent years.
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Until now, epidemic clones have been identified
retrospectively, making it difficult to understand their
origins and direction of transmission. A critical
step in early detection of emerging epidemic clones is
to link animal and human surveillance and sub typing.
As part of the surveillance project we routinely compare Salmonella isolates from various
sources in order to enhance detection of an emerging disseminated
clone.
As another part of our surveillance project we are also studying the
growing threat of antibiotic resistance in enteric bacteria. A
variety of factors contribute to the evolution, dissemination, and
maintenance of antibiotic resistance and one of our projects is
focused on the role of plasmids in this process. Plasmids are small,
circular DNA elements that are independent of the bacterial
chromosome and most plasmids can be shared between different strains
of bacteria (this is called horizontal gene transfer). As part of
this project we recently developed a novel microarray fingerprinting
tool that allows us to classify plasmids based on their overall
genetic similarity and this has in turn led to the discovery and
characterization of three genetic elements that are involved in
dissemination of the blaCMY-2 gene amongst E.
coli and Salmonella. The blaCMY-2 gene
confers
resistance to third generation cephalosporins that are
particularly important drugs for treating pediatric cases of
salmonellosis. We are continuing this work by further characterizing
these resistance plasmids from collections representing several
continents and we are sequencing two plasmids to better understand
the physical makeup of blaCMY-2 plasmids.
Return to Current Projects
Food and Waterborne Diseases Integrated Research Network
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National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases
6610 Rockledge Drive, MSC 6612
Bethesda, MD 20892-6612
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National Institutes of Health (NIH)
9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, Maryland 20892
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ZRU Home
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March 07, 2007
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