Recent Research Examining Links Among Klebsiella pneumoniae from Food, Food Animals, and Human Extraintestinal Infections

Abstract

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a colonizer of livestock, a contaminant of retail meats and vegetables, and a cause of extraintestinal infections in humans. Antibiotic-resistant strains of K. pneumoniae are becoming increasingly prevalent among hospital and community-acquired infections. Antibiotics are used extensively in conventional food-animal production, where they select for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic-resistant K. pneumoniae has been isolated from livestock as well as from a variety of retail meats, seafood, and vegetables. Furthermore, recent phylogenetic analyses suggest close relationships between K. pneumoniae from humans and livestock. Therefore, it is essential that we quantify the contribution of foodborne K. pneumoniae to antibiotic-resistant human infections.

Klebsiella pneumoniae as a key trafficker of drug resistance genes from environmental to clinically important bacteria

“…Reports in the 1970s--80s highlighted the ubiquitous distribution of K. pneumoniae among diverse fresh and salt water environments, plants, and soil [41]. K. pneumoniae causes infections in cows, horses and other wild and domestic animals [9,[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49]. However as an opportunistic pathogen, it is likely that K. pneumoniae is more often a component of the normal animal gut microbiota.…”

“…In humans the rate of intestinal K. pneumoniae colonisation has been estimated at 6% [50,51], while in dairy cows the rate may be much higher (~44% among herds in New York, USA, [52]). K. pneumoniae has also been cultured from the faeces of other agricultural and domestic animals, from the cloacae of birds, and from fish, shellfish, insects and earthworms [43,49,[53][54][55][56][57]. It is a common contaminant of animal and plant--based foods, which likely plays a key role in introducing environmental strains into the human gut [49].…”

“…K. pneumoniae has also been cultured from the faeces of other agricultural and domestic animals, from the cloacae of birds, and from fish, shellfish, insects and earthworms [43,49,[53][54][55][56][57]. It is a common contaminant of animal and plant--based foods, which likely plays a key role in introducing environmental strains into the human gut [49]. Enterobacteriaceae are well known gut colonisers, and all the ESKAPE pathogens can be isolated from environmental sources [58], however systematic comparisons of isolation rates across environmental and animal sources are lacking.…”

U.S. bans antibiotics use for enhancing growth in livestock

“…Enterobacteriaceae found in livestock and on retail meat include the opportunistic pathogens Escherichia coli and Klebsiella (Davis and Price, 2016;Davis et al, 2015;Nordstrom et al, 2013), which are the most common causes of urinary tract infections and among the most common causes of bloodstream infections in patients (Davis and Price, 2016;Diekema et al, 2003;Laupland and Church, 2014;Laupland et al, 2007;Russo and Johnson, 2003;Wisplinghoff et al, 2004). Staphylococcus aureus, the most common cause of skin infections and second most common cause of bloodstream infections in patients (Brook and Frazier, 1995;Carratala et al, 2003;Diekema et al, 2001;Sigurdsson and Gudmundsson, 1989;Wisplinghoff et al, 2003a;Wisplinghoff et al, 2003b;Wisplinghoff et al, 2004), is also found on the skin of livestock and on retail meat (Smith, 2015;Smith and Wardyn, 2015).…”

“…In the ensuing decades, numerous studies have been published in peer-reviewed scientific literature providing additional evidence of the spread of antibiotic-resistant microbes from livestock animals into the food supply or to humans (CDC, 2013b;Davis and Price, 2016;Elliott, 2015;Marshall and Levy, 2011;O'Neill, 2015;Robinson et al, 2016;Sneeringer et al, 2015). Indeed a recent report commissioned by the British government concluded the following:…”