Publications by authors named "Smriti Pathak"

Objectives: Information on genetic determinants of chlorhexidine tolerance (qacA carriage and MIC) in vitro is available, although evidence of the clinical impact and mechanisms remain poorly understood. We investigated why, following chlorhexidine intervention, prevalent epidemic MRSA ST22 and ST36 clones declined at an ICU, whilst an ST239-TW clone did not. The chlorhexidine tolerant ST239-TW phenotypes were assessed for their protein binding, cell adhesion and intracellular uptake potential.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Rabies is a serious disease that's still affecting people worldwide, and new methods like the Milwaukee Protocol are being tried to help those who get it, but they haven't worked very well.
  • A 58-year-old woman in the UK showed symptoms of rabies after being bitten by a dog in India and was diagnosed with the virus soon after arriving at the hospital.
  • Despite treatment, her health got worse quickly, and she sadly passed away, leading doctors to realize that understanding the virus and how it spreads in the body is important for managing rabies better in the future.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The 3.1-Mb genome of an outbreak methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strain (TW20) contains evidence of recently acquired DNA, including two large regions (635 kb and 127 kb). The strain is resistant to a wide range of antibiotics, antiseptics, and heavy metals due to resistance genes encoded on mobile genetic elements and also mutations in housekeeping genes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and multi-strain microarray analysis have shown that most human Staphylococcus aureus strains belong to ten dominant clonal complexes (CCs) or lineages, each with unique surface architecture. Meticillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strains currently belong to six of these lineages (CC1, CC5, CC8, CC22, CC30 and CC45), each of which has independently acquired mobile genetic elements (MGEs) carrying antibiotic resistance genes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Patients in intensive care units are at high risk of developing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia. We report an epidemiological and bacterial genomic analysis of a 2-year outbreak in an intensive care unit of a variant of MRSA sequence type 239 (hereafter designated TW).

Methods: A cohort study was conducted to compare risk factors for MRSA bacteremia in patients who acquired TW versus patients who acquired non-TW strains of MRSA.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF