The surge of nosocomial infections caused by clinically opportunistic pathogens has recently led to the interests of researchers and clinicians from the scientific and medical communities. The nosocomial pathogens include but are not limited to the following microorganisms: coagulase-negative staphylococci, Streptococcus spp., Enterococcus spp., Klebsiella spp., Pseudomonas spp., Acinetobacter spp., Escherichia coli, Candida species, and cytomegalovirus. In general, these microbes asymptomatically colonize different body sites in humans, constituting a balanced microbial community that can interact with the immune and defense system of healthy individuals. When the conditions are changed, the threats of opportunistic pathogens to human health will increase, particularly for the immunocompromised and ICU-admitted patients, as well as those receiving treatment with indwelling devices, such as central venous catheters, dental work, or urinary catheters. It is still a big challenge for accurate identification and distinguishing infection-causing opportunistic pathogenic strains from those nonpathogenic/colonizing strains in the real-world specimens from the healthcare setting.
This research topic aims to enable medical researchers and clinicians to understand the advantages and limitations of metagenomic surveillance on the epidemiology and pathobiology of opportunistic nosocomial pathogens for prevention and diagnosis in the healthcare setting. We expect to utilize the high-dimensional and multi-level clinical microbiome data from large-scale patient populations to address the following issues: i) To establish a reference catalog of infectious diseases microbiome different from the healthy human microbiome; ii) To investigate and quantify microbial species-level relative abundance profiles that are specific to distinct types of clinical specimens; iii) To develop statistical models for supporting the estimation and clinical verification of the pathogenic detection limits in the human microbial community; iv) To investigate strain typing of nosocomial pathogens, as well as to genotype of antimicrobial resistance and virulence based on the metagenomic surveillance system. In this research topic, the proposed practical research on the detection limits of opportunistic nosocomial pathogens will provide a theoretical and clinical reference for clarifying the feasibility of its clinical application. Meanwhile, it will benefit the generation of robust clinical microbiology diagnostic standards guided by meta-omic big data in the era of evidence-based medicine.
To elucidate the above scientific themes, submissions on the latest research advances are welcomed to our research topic. The research topic covers relevant themes of metagenomic surveillance and epidemiology but is not limited to:
• Metagenomic surveillance of hospital-acquired infections
• Epidemiology of nosocomial pathogens
• Diagnosis of opportunistic pathogens
• Metagenome-wide strain typing and clinically relevant genotyping
• Statistical models on the detection limits of pathogenic risk
• Analytical tools assisting result interpretation of clinical meta-omic data
The guest editors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. Dr Xu reported being an employee of Genoxor Medical Science and Technology Inc.
The surge of nosocomial infections caused by clinically opportunistic pathogens has recently led to the interests of researchers and clinicians from the scientific and medical communities. The nosocomial pathogens include but are not limited to the following microorganisms: coagulase-negative staphylococci, Streptococcus spp., Enterococcus spp., Klebsiella spp., Pseudomonas spp., Acinetobacter spp., Escherichia coli, Candida species, and cytomegalovirus. In general, these microbes asymptomatically colonize different body sites in humans, constituting a balanced microbial community that can interact with the immune and defense system of healthy individuals. When the conditions are changed, the threats of opportunistic pathogens to human health will increase, particularly for the immunocompromised and ICU-admitted patients, as well as those receiving treatment with indwelling devices, such as central venous catheters, dental work, or urinary catheters. It is still a big challenge for accurate identification and distinguishing infection-causing opportunistic pathogenic strains from those nonpathogenic/colonizing strains in the real-world specimens from the healthcare setting.
This research topic aims to enable medical researchers and clinicians to understand the advantages and limitations of metagenomic surveillance on the epidemiology and pathobiology of opportunistic nosocomial pathogens for prevention and diagnosis in the healthcare setting. We expect to utilize the high-dimensional and multi-level clinical microbiome data from large-scale patient populations to address the following issues: i) To establish a reference catalog of infectious diseases microbiome different from the healthy human microbiome; ii) To investigate and quantify microbial species-level relative abundance profiles that are specific to distinct types of clinical specimens; iii) To develop statistical models for supporting the estimation and clinical verification of the pathogenic detection limits in the human microbial community; iv) To investigate strain typing of nosocomial pathogens, as well as to genotype of antimicrobial resistance and virulence based on the metagenomic surveillance system. In this research topic, the proposed practical research on the detection limits of opportunistic nosocomial pathogens will provide a theoretical and clinical reference for clarifying the feasibility of its clinical application. Meanwhile, it will benefit the generation of robust clinical microbiology diagnostic standards guided by meta-omic big data in the era of evidence-based medicine.
To elucidate the above scientific themes, submissions on the latest research advances are welcomed to our research topic. The research topic covers relevant themes of metagenomic surveillance and epidemiology but is not limited to:
• Metagenomic surveillance of hospital-acquired infections
• Epidemiology of nosocomial pathogens
• Diagnosis of opportunistic pathogens
• Metagenome-wide strain typing and clinically relevant genotyping
• Statistical models on the detection limits of pathogenic risk
• Analytical tools assisting result interpretation of clinical meta-omic data
The guest editors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. Dr Xu reported being an employee of Genoxor Medical Science and Technology Inc.
