Clinical_Serratia_WGS

Serratia spp., in particular Serratia marcescens can cause problematic nosocomial infections, and are included in the Enterobacteriaceae critical priority pathogens list for research and development of new antibiotics. We have preliminary data in Serratia marcescens suggesting that regulation of the Type VI secretion system, which is used by many bacterial species to compete with other microbes in polymicrobial communities, and other key traits potentially related to inter-microbial interactions and host colonisation is subject to selection pressure in the clinical environment, along with antimicrobial resistance. In this study, we will sequence Serratia isolated from patients with long-term lung infections, using short read sequencing on single-colony picked isolates from sputum samples. These samples are from the ORBIT study, a clinical trial set up to evaluate the safety and efficacy of inhaled Pulmaquin in individuals with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis with a history of pulmonary exacerbations and chronic P. aeruginosa infections. Whilst the focus of this study was not on Serratia spp., there are a large number of banked samples that includes ~200 Serratia isolates, many of which were isolated from individual patients with long-term Serratia colonisation. This collection of samples offer us a valuable opportunity to study isolates of Serratia from long- and short-term infected patients, to observe within-patient evolution, particularly of the traits we have previously observed, and contextualise the infection within the wider bacterial community present in the lung at the same time, and to support our findings with robust and comprehensive metadata and patient information.