Favorite Research Paper Award Discusses Salmonella and Wild Birds

What is your favorite clinical microbiology research paper form 2023? Not a question I have ever been asked or even thought about. Favorite movie or favorite restaurant visit, sure, but can't say I have a favorite clinical microbiology paper. Well some microbiology geeks picked a paper authored by one of our favorite Penn State microbiology geeks, Dr. Ed Dudley's research paper as their favorite paper. Awesome. Congrats to him and his collaborators. And to the editors point, it has a lot going for it ....Salmonella, wild birds, evolution, and One Health.  We can think about this as it relates to food in that wild birds are a source of Salmonella within the food supply chain.

The selection by Editors in Conversation, Journal of Clinical Microbiology
https://lnkd.in/eHd4hZwz

Starting around minute 39
So what is this paper...

Whole-Genome Subtyping Reveals Population Structure and Host Adaptation of Salmonella Typhimurium from Wild Birds
https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jcm.01847-22

ABSTRACT

Within-host evolution of bacterial pathogens can lead to host-associated variants of the same species or serovar. Identification and characterization of closely related variants from diverse host species are crucial to public health and host-pathogen adaptation research. However, the work remained largely underexplored at a strain level until the advent of whole-genome sequencing (WGS). Here, we performed WGS-based subtyping and analyses of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (n = 787) from different wild birds across 18 countries over a 75-year period. We revealed seven avian host-associated S. Typhimurium variants/lineages. These lineages emerged globally over short timescales and presented genetic features distinct from S. Typhimurium lineages circulating among humans and domestic animals. We further showed that, in terms of virulence, host adaptation of these variants was driven by genome degradation. Our results provide a snapshot of the population structure and genetic diversity of S. Typhimurium within avian hosts. We also demonstrate the value of WGS-based subtyping and analyses in unravelling closely related variants at the strain level.

An selected items from the paper as it impacts food.

"As indicated in this study, wild animals such as wild birds represent remarkable but less studied reservoirs for emerging variants of bacterial pathogens. Epidemiologic studies have also revealed a correlation between some human and avian salmonellosis outbreaks, suggesting transmission of bacterial pathogens between wild birds and humans (55–59). Although such transmission is rare relative to transmission between humans and humans or between humans and domestic animals (72, 73), they can still have a substantial impact on global health as avian hosts are highly mobile and possibly carry and spread bacterial pathogens over large distances (44, 45). In a One Health framework, current surveillance of bacterial pathogens needs to be focused not only on clinical isolates or isolates from domestic animals but also on those originating from wild animals."