Publications by authors named "A T Pietzka"
Article Synopsis
- Foodborne illnesses like listeriosis, caused by the Listeria bacteria, are a big worry for public health, especially during outbreaks.
- Scientists collected and studied over 1800 Listeria samples from patients in Germany to understand how the bacteria spread and caused infections.
- They found that many infection clusters lasted a long time and could affect people in different regions, with some bacteria types being more harmful than others.
Nanopore sequencing has shown the potential to democratize genomic pathogen surveillance due to its ease of use and low entry cost. However, recent genotyping studies showed discrepant results compared to gold-standard short-read sequencing. Furthermore, although essential for widespread application, the reproducibility of nanopore-only genotyping remains largely unresolved.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: is an ubiquitous foodborne pathogen that represents a serious threat to public health and the food industry.
Methods: In this study Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) was used to characterize 160 isolates obtained from 22,593 different food sources in Montenegro during the years 2014-2022.
Results: Isolates belonged to 21 different clonal complexes (CCs), 22 sequence types (STs) and 73 core genome multilocus sequence types (cgMLST) revealing a high diversity.
Article Synopsis
- The study highlights a major public health issue with a specific bacterium's ability to survive in food processing environments, posing contamination risks.
- After cleaning and disinfecting a European frozen vegetable facility, samples revealed persistent in-house bacterial clones on surfaces like conveyor belts, with biofilms found at 12.7% of sites sampled.
- 16S rRNA gene sequencing showed a diverse microbial community, indicating specific bacterial taxa were significantly more prevalent in biofilm-positive samples, suggesting complex interactions in the food processing environment.
Background: Listeria monocytogenes is a bacterial pathogen known for causing listeriosis, a foodborne illness with a wide spectrum of clinical presentations ranging from mild gastroenteritis to severe invasive disease, particularly affecting immunocompromised individuals, pregnant women, newborns, and the elderly. Successful treatment of patients with recurring listeria episodes due to colonised foreign material is often challenging, typically requiring a combination of antimicrobial treatment and surgical removal.
Case Presentation: Here, we present a particularly complex case of chronic invasive listeriosis with a total of six relapses.