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Detection of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium hospital-adapted lineages in municipal wastewater treatment plants indicates widespread distribution and release into the environment

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Gouliouris, Theo 
Raven, Kathy 
Coll, Francesc 

Abstract

Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) is a leading cause of healthcare-associated infection. Reservoirs of VREfm are largely assumed to be nosocomial although there is a paucity of data on alternative sources. Here, we describe an integrated epidemiological and genomic analysis of E. faecium associated with bloodstream infection and isolated from wastewater. Treated and untreated wastewater from 20 municipal treatment plants in the East of England, United Kingdom was obtained and cultured to isolate E. faecium, ampicillin-resistant E. faecium (AREfm) and VREfm. VREfm was isolated from all 20 treatment plants and was released into the environment by 17/20 plants, the exceptions using terminal ultraviolet light disinfection. Median log10 counts of AREfm and VREfm in untreated wastewater from ten plants in direct receipt of hospital sewage was significantly higher than ten plants that were not. We sequenced and compared the genomes of 423 isolates from wastewater with 187 isolates associated with bloodstream infection at five hospitals in the East of England. Amongst 481 E. faecium isolates belonging to the hospital-adapted clade, we observed genetic intermixing between wastewater and bloodstream infection, with highly related isolates shared between a major teaching hospital in the East of England and 9/20 plants. We detected 28 antibiotic resistance genes in the hospital-adapted clade, of which 23 were represented in bloodstream, hospital sewage and municipal wastewater isolates. We conclude that our findings are consistent with widespread distribution of hospital-adapted VREfm beyond acute healthcare settings with extensive release of VREfm into the environment in the East of England.

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Keywords

Journal Title

Genome Research

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1549-5469

Volume Title

29

Publisher

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
Sponsorship
Wellcome Trust (098600/Z/12/Z)
This publication presents independent research supported by the Health Innovation Challenge Fund (WT098600, HICF-T5-342), a parallel funding partnership between the Department of Health and Wellcome Trust. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Department of Health or Wellcome Trust. This work was supported by a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship (to T.G. [103387/Z/13/Z]), a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Postdoctoral Fellowship (to C.L. [110243/Z/15/Z] and F.C. [201344/Z/16/Z]), and an ERC grant (742158) (to J.C.).