Long-term Persistence of an Extensively Drug-Resistant Subclade of Globally Distributed Pseudomonas aeruginosa Clonal Complex 446 in an Academic Medical Center.

Background: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major challenge in the treatment of infections caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Highly drug-resistant infections are disproportionally caused by a small subset of globally distributed P. aeruginosa sequence types (STs), termed "high-risk clones.

Environmental reservoirs for exoS+ and exoU+ strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa uses its type III secretion system to inject the effector proteins ExoS and ExoU into eukaryotic cells, which subverts these cells to the bacterium's advantage and contributes to severe infections. We studied the environmental reservoirs of exoS+ and exoU+ strains of P. aeruginosa by collecting water, soil, moist substrates and plant samples from environments in the Chicago region and neighbouring states.