Environmental microbial sequences from a veterinary hospital

A reproducible protocol was established to explore the resistomes associated with a veterinary hospital environment and to attribute the detected ARGs to their corresponding bacterial hosts or genetic origin using nanopore sequencing. The results were confirmed with reference methods, i.e. 16S rRNA analysis, WaferGen qPCR arrays and Illumina sequencing. Four MinION long read datasets obtained from different parts of the veterinary hospital environment were analysed to evaluate the significance of ARG profiles in relation to their clinical risk, co-occurrence in their bacterial host and potential for transmission between microorganisms, with the aim of improving infection control procedures in veterinary facilities.