Within-household transmission and bacterial diversity of Staphylococcus pseudintermedius

Staphylococcus pseudintermedius can be transmitted between dogs and their owners and can cause opportunistic infections in humans. Whole-genome sequencing was applied to identify the re-latedness between isolates from human infections and isolates from dogs in the same house-holds. Genome SNP diversity and distribution of plasmids and antimicrobial resistance genes identified related and unrelated isolates in both households. Our study shows that within-host bacterial diversity is present in S. pseudintermedius demonstrating that multiple isolates from each host should preferably be sequenced to study transmission dynamics.