Tracing 's Journey from Hospitals to Aquatic Ecosystems.

Background: This study provides a comprehensive analysis of in aquatic environments and fish microbiota by integrating culture-dependent methods, 16S metagenomics, and antibiotic resistance profiling.

Methods: A total of 83 isolates were recovered using culture-dependent methods from intra-hospital infections (IHI) and wastewater (WW) and surface water (SW) samples from two southern Romanian cities in August 2022. The antibiotic susceptibility was screened using disc diffusion, microdilution, PCR, and Whole Genome Sequencing assays.