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Cuénod A, Agnetti J, Seth-Smith HMB, Roloff T, Wälchli D, Shcherbakov D, Akbergenov R, Tschudin-Sutter S, Bassetti S, Siegemund M, Nickel CH, Moran-Gilad J, Keys TG, Pflüger V, Thomson NR, Egli A. Bacterial genome-wide association study substantiates papGII of Escherichia coli as a major risk factor for urosepsis. Genome Med 2023; 15:89. [PMID: 37904175 PMCID: PMC10614358 DOI: 10.1186/s13073-023-01243-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2023] [Accepted: 10/02/2023] [Indexed: 11/01/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the most common bacterial infections worldwide, often caused by uropathogenic Escherichia coli. Multiple bacterial virulence factors or patient characteristics have been linked separately to progressive, more invasive infections. In this study, we aim to identify pathogen- and patient-specific factors that drive the progression to urosepsis by jointly analysing bacterial and host characteristics. METHODS We analysed 1076 E. coli strains isolated from 825 clinical cases with UTI and/or bacteraemia by whole-genome sequencing (Illumina). Sequence types (STs) were determined via srst2 and capsule loci via fastKaptive. We compared the isolates from urine and blood to confirm clonality. Furthermore, we performed a bacterial genome-wide association study (bGWAS) (pyseer) using bacteraemia as the primary clinical outcome. Clinical data were collected by an electronic patient chart review. We concurrently analysed the association of the most significant bGWAS hit and important patient characteristics with the clinical endpoint bacteraemia using a generalised linear model (GLM). Finally, we designed qPCR primers and probes to detect papGII-positive E. coli strains and prospectively screened E. coli from urine samples (n = 1657) at two healthcare centres. RESULTS Our patient cohort had a median age of 75.3 years (range: 18.00-103.1) and was predominantly female (574/825, 69.6%). The bacterial phylogroups B2 (60.6%; 500/825) and D (16.6%; 137/825), which are associated with extraintestinal infections, represent the majority of the strains in our collection, many of which encode a polysaccharide capsule (63.4%; 525/825). The most frequently observed STs were ST131 (12.7%; 105/825), ST69 (11.0%; 91/825), and ST73 (10.2%; 84/825). Of interest, in 12.3% (13/106) of cases, the E. coli pairs in urine and blood were only distantly related. In line with previous bGWAS studies, we identified the gene papGII (p-value < 0.001), which encodes the adhesin subunit of the E. coli P-pilus, to be associated with 'bacteraemia' in our bGWAS. In our GLM, correcting for patient characteristics, papGII remained highly significant (odds ratio = 5.27, 95% confidence interval = [3.48, 7.97], p-value < 0.001). An independent cohort of cases which we screened for papGII-carrying E. coli at two healthcare centres further confirmed the increased relative frequency of papGII-positive strains causing invasive infection, compared to papGII-negative strains (p-value = 0.033, chi-squared test). CONCLUSIONS This study builds on previous work linking papGII with invasive infection by showing that it is a major risk factor for progression from UTI to bacteraemia that has diagnostic potential.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aline Cuénod
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
- Parasites and Microbes, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK.
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, McGill University, Montréal, Canada.
| | - Jessica Agnetti
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Helena M B Seth-Smith
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Tim Roloff
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Denise Wälchli
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Dimitri Shcherbakov
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Rashid Akbergenov
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Sarah Tschudin-Sutter
- Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiology, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Department of Clinical Research, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Stefano Bassetti
- Division of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Martin Siegemund
- Department of Clinical Research, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Intensive Care Unit, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Christian H Nickel
- Emergency Department, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Jacob Moran-Gilad
- Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Be'er Sheva, Israel
| | - Timothy G Keys
- Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | | | - Nicholas R Thomson
- Parasites and Microbes, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK
- Department of Pathogen Molecular Biology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
| | - Adrian Egli
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
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Tseng CC, Lin WH, Wu AB, Wang MC, Teng CH, Wu JJ. Escherichia coli FimH adhesins act synergistically with PapGII adhesins for enhancing establishment and maintenance of kidney infection. J Microbiol Immunol Infect 2020; 55:44-50. [PMID: 33023843 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmii.2020.09.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2020] [Revised: 08/17/2020] [Accepted: 09/07/2020] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND FimH adhesin is proposed to enhance Escherichia coli kidney infection by acting with PapGII adhesin, but genetic epidemiology study and animal study have not been widely conducted to confirm this hypothesis. METHODS We compared the prevalence of adhesin gene and their coexistent pattern between upper and lower urinary tract infection (UTI) strains. fimH mutant (EC114FM), papGII mutant (EC114PM) and fimH/papGII double mutant (EC114DM) were constructed from a pylonephritogenic strain (EC114). We compared among these strains for the infection ability in bladders and kidneys of female BALB/c mice challenged transurethrally with these bacteria and assessed 1, 3, and 7 days after inoculation. RESULTS Strains carrying fimH-only genotype were significantly more prevalent in lower UTI (P < 0.001). Strains carrying the fimH/papGII, but not papGII-only, were significantly associated with upper UTI (P = 0.001). Incidence of kidney infection increased after inoculation with EC114 on days 1 and 3, at both low and high dose, as compared with EC114DM; and the effect was greater than the sum of individual effect of EC114PM and EC114FM. Geometric means of quantitative bacterial counts in the kidneys significantly decreased when challenged with EC114FM on days 3 and 7, EC114PM on day 3 and EC114DM on day 1 after inoculation at high dose, as compared with EC114 (all P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS We confirmed the advantage and synergistic action of FimH and PapGII for E. coli kidney infection and concluded that antagonists against FimH and PapGII adhesin may prevent kidney infection and enable its management.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chin-Chung Tseng
- Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
| | - Wei-Hung Lin
- Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
| | - An-Bang Wu
- Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
| | - Ming-Cheng Wang
- Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan; Institute of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
| | - Ching-Hao Teng
- Institute of Molecular Medicine, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
| | - Jiunn-Jong Wu
- Department of Biotechnology and Laboratory Science in Medicine, School of Biomedical Science and Engineering, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
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