Zooplankton as a Transitional Host for in Freshwater.

This study shows that Escherichia coli can be temporarily enriched in zooplankton under natural conditions and that these bacteria can belong to different phylogroups and sequence types (STs), including environmental, clinical, and animal isolates. We isolated 10 E. coli strains and sequenced the genomes of two of them.

An Environmental Strain Is Naturally Competent to Acquire Exogenous DNA.

The diffusion of antibiotic resistance determinants in different environments, e.g., soil and water, has become a public concern for global health and food safety and many efforts are currently devoted to clarify this complex ecological and evolutionary issue.

Defence strategies and antibiotic resistance gene abundance in enterococci under stress by exposure to low doses of peracetic acid.

Peracetic acid (PAA) is an organic compound used efficiently as disinfectant in wastewater treatments. Yet, at low doses it may cause selection; thus, the effect of low doses of PAA on Enterococcus faecium as a proxy of human-related microbial waste was evaluated. Bacteria were treated with increasing doses of PAA (from 0 to 25 mg L min) and incubated in regrowth experiments under non-growing, limiting conditions and under growing, favorable conditions.