A Chinese team tracks the genetic diversity and antimicrobial resistance patterns present in foodborne Klebsiella pneumoniae. As they report in PLOS One, the researchers used culture-based methods, PCR, and/or sequencing to test 998 food samples collected in China's Shijiazhuang city between spring 2013 and summer 2014. K .pneumoniae turned up in nearly 14 percent of fresh raw chicken samples, more than 11 percent of frozen raw food samples, around 8 percent of fresh raw seafood samples, and 7.5 percent of the samples of cooked food tested. Most of the isolates were ampicillin resistant, while nearly a third showed signs of tetracycline resistance. The authors saw lower levels of resistance to other antibiotics tested. "Our results demonstrated high prevalence, antibiotic resistance rate and genetic diversity of K. pneumoniae in food in China," they write. "Improved control and prevention strategies are urgently needed."
For another PLOS One paper, members of the PROCOLON research group describe findings from a study aimed at determining the colorectal adenoma risk associated with common, low-penetrance variants already associated with colorectal cancer. With data for more than 1,300 individuals with advanced or multiple adenomas and nearly 1,300 unaffected controls, the researchers looked for ties between adenoma and 30 variants implicated in colorectal cancer. The case-control study uncovered 14 variants showing significant associations with risk of advanced adenoma or multiple adenoma, they note, while overall adenoma risk appeared to notch up in individuals with more and more colorectal cancer risk variants.
In PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, researchers from the US and Peru characterize a newly detected group C orthobunyavirus found in a Peruvian mosquito. Using viral material from a pooled sample of Culex portesi mosquitoes captured in monkey-baited traps near the El Huayo arboretum and botanical garden by Iquitos, Peru, the team uncovered a few orthobunyavirus reads by metagenomic sequencing. Subsequent sequencing produced contigs spanning all three known orthobunyavirus segments — a genome sequence the investigators used to delve into the phylogeny and infectiousness of the new virus, known as El Huayo for the location it was found.