Brief description

Within this project, we intend to characterize particular and/or multidrug resistant bacterial strains that arise from continuous microbiological surveillance at our clinical partner, IRCSS-ISMETT. Their pathogenic potential will be assessed in vitro, to understand if these bacterial isolates can become strains of clinical relevance.

Bacterial clinical isolates which display a particular phenotype, e.g., resistance to a particular drug or set of drugs, will have their genomic material sequenced and matched against the information currently available in public databases. Once the drug resistance patterns are identified, these clinical isolates will be classified accordingly and, if a particular sequence type (ST) or novel species is found, it will be further characterized by in vitro assays, e.g., abiotic and cellular biofilm formation ability and human serum resistance.

Impact:

By assessing both their clinical relevance and predominance, we can understand if novel interventions are required against these specific strains, such as a vaccine or an immuno-therapy. The predominance of such bacterial clinical isolates will be compared to what is currently observed in both the national and international sceneries, to understand if the Sicilian reality reflects what is presently observed at epidemiological level worldwide or if novel ST are arising in our clinical partner IRCCS-ISMETT. This is highly important since it will allow the definition of correct and/or novel prophylaxis and treatment regimens for patients who must suffer a transplantation and thus, have their immune system suppressed to avoid organ rejection.

Pipeline