Agricultural environments are becoming increasingly contaminated with plastic pollution. Plastics in the environment can also provide a unique habitat for microbial biofilm, termed the \'plastisphere\', which can also support the persistence of human pathogens such as Salmonella. Human enteric Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium can enter agricultural environments via flooding or from irrigation with contaminated water. Using soil mesocosms we quantified the ability of S. Typhimurium to persist on microplastic beads in two agriculturally relevant soils, under ambient and repeat flood scenarios. S. Typhimurium persisted in the plastisphere for 35 days in both podzol and loamy soils; while during multiple flood events was able to survive in the plastisphere for up to 21 days. S. Typhimurium could dissociate from the plastisphere during flooding events and migrate through soil in leachate, and importantly could colonise new plastic particles in the soil, suggesting that plastic pollution in agricultural soils can aid S. Typhimurium persistence and facilitate further dissemination within the environment. The potential for increased survival of enteric human pathogens in agricultural and food production environments due to plastic contamination poses a significant public health risk, particularly in potato or root vegetable systems where there is the potential for direct contact with crops.

Stomata serve as the battleground between plants and plant pathogens. Plants can perceive pathogens, inducing closure of the stomatal pore, while pathogens can overcome this immune response with their phytotoxins and elicitors. In this review, we summarize new discoveries in stomata-pathogen interactions. Recent studies have shown that stomatal movement continues to occur in a close-open-close-open pattern during bacterium infection, bringing a new understanding of stomatal immunity. Furthermore, the canonical pattern-triggered immunity pathway and ion channel activities seem to be common to plant-pathogen interactions outside of the well-studied Arabidopsis-Pseudomonas pathosystem. These developments can be useful to aid in the goal of crop improvement. New technologies to study intact leaves and advances in available omics data sets provide new methods for understanding the fight at the stomatal gate. Future studies should aim to further investigate the defense-growth trade-off in relation to stomatal immunity, as little is known at this time.

BACKGROUND: The first step in the contamination of leafy vegetables by human pathogens is their attachment to the leaf surface. The success of this is influenced strongly by the physical and chemical characteristics of the surface itself (number and size of stomata, presence of trichomes and veins, epicuticular waxes, hydrophobicity, etc.). This study evaluated the attachment of Salmonella enterica to 30 baby-leaf salads and tested whether the differences found among them were related to the following leaf traits: hydrophobicity, roughness, and epicuticular waxes.
RESULTS: Differences in susceptibility to contamination by S. enterica were found between the 30 baby-leaf salads investigated. The lowest attachment was found in wild lettuce (Lactuca serriola L.) and lamb\'s lettuce \'Trophy F1\' (Valerianella locusta [L.] Laterr.), with values of 1.63 ± 0.39 Log(CFU/cm2) and 1.79 ± 0.54 Log(CFU/cm2), respectively. Attachment was correlated with hydrophobicity (measured as contact angle) (r = -0.39) and epicuticular waxes (r = -0.81) but not with roughness (r = 0.24). The most important wax components for attachment were alcohols and, in particular, the three-dimensional (3D) wax crystals of C26 alcohol, but fatty acids probably also had a role. Both these compounds increased hydrophobicity. The presence of thymol, whose antimicrobial properties are well known, was found in lamb\'s lettuce.
CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study can help to predict and control the attachment and contamination of leafy salads by enterobacteria. They also provide useful information for breeding programs aiming to develop cultivars that are less susceptible to human pathogens, enhancing the food safety of vegetables. © 2024 The Author(s). Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Wastewater contains an extensive reservoir of genetic information, yet largely unexplored. Here, we analyzed by high-throughput sequencing total nucleic acids extracted from wastewater samples collected during a 17 month-period in Berlin, Germany. By integrating global wastewater datasets and applying a novel computational approach to accurately identify viral strains within sewage RNA-sequencing data, we demonstrated the emergence and global dissemination of a specific astrovirus strain. Astrovirus abundance and sequence variation mirrored temporal and spatial patterns of infection, potentially serving as footprints of specific timeframes and geographical locations. Additionally, we revealed more than 100,000 sequence contigs likely originating from novel viral species, exhibiting distinct profiles in total RNA and DNA datasets and including undescribed bunyaviruses and parvoviruses. Finally, we identified thousands of new CRISPR-associated protein sequences, including Transposase B (TnpB), a class of compact, RNA-guided DNA editing enzymes. Collectively, our findings underscore the potential of high-throughput sequencing of total nucleic acids derived from wastewater for a broad range of applications.

Assessing the risk of human pathogens in the environment is crucial for controlling the spread of diseases and safeguarding human health. However, conducting a thorough assessment of low-abundance pathogens in highly complex environmental microbial communities remains challenging. This study compiled a comprehensive catalog of 247 human-pathogenic bacterial taxa from global biosafety agencies and identified more than 78 million genome-specific markers (GSMs) from their 17,470 sequenced genomes. Subsequently, we analyzed these pathogens\' types, abundance, and diversity within 474 shotgun metagenomic sequences obtained from diverse environmental sources. The results revealed that among the four habitats studied (air, water, soil, and sediment), the detection rate, diversity, and abundance of detectable pathogens in the air all exceeded those in the other three habitats. Air, sediment, and water environments exhibited identical dominant taxa, indicating that these human pathogens may have unique environmental vectors for their transmission or survival. Furthermore, we observed the impact of human activities on the environmental risk posed by these pathogens, where greater amounts of human activities significantly increased the abundance of human pathogenic bacteria, especially in water and air. These findings have remarkable implications for the environmental risk assessment of human pathogens, providing valuable insights into their presence and distribution across different habitats.

Plastic waste is found with increasing frequency in the environment, in low- and middle-income countries. Plastic pollution has increased concurrently with both economic development and rapid urbanisation, amplifying the effects of inadequate waste management. Distinct microbial communities can quickly colonise plastic surfaces in what is collectively known as the \'plastisphere\'. The plastisphere can act as a reservoir for human pathogenic bacteria, including Salmonella enterica sp. (such as S. Typhimurium), which can persist for long periods, retain pathogenicity, and pose an increased public health risk. Through employing a novel mesocosm setup, we have shown here that the plastisphere provides enhanced protection against environmental pressures such as ultraviolet (UV) radiation and allows S. Typhimurium to persist at concentrations (>1 × 103 CFU/ml) capable of causing human infection, for up to 28 days. Additionally, using a Galleria Mellonella model of infection, S. Typhimurium exhibits greater pathogenicity following recovery from the UV-exposed plastisphere, suggesting that the plastisphere may select for more virulent variants. This study demonstrates the protection afforded by the plastisphere and provides further evidence of environmental plastic waste acting as a reservoir for dangerous clinical pathogens. Quantifying the role of plastic pollution in facilitating the survival, persistence, and dissemination of human pathogens is critical for a more holistic understanding of the potential public health risks associated with plastic waste.

Human fungal diseases are infections caused by any fungus that invades human tissues, causing superficial, subcutaneous, or systemic diseases. Fungal infections that enter various human tissues and organs pose a significant threat to millions of individuals with weakened immune systems globally. Over recent decades, the reported cases of invasive fungal infections have increased substantially and research progress in this field has also been rapidly boosted. This review provides a comprehensive list of human fungal pathogens extracted from over 850 recent case reports, and a summary of the relevant disease conditions and their origins. Details of 281 human fungal pathogens belonging to 12 classes and 104 genera in the divisions ascomycota, basidiomycota, entomophthoromycota, and mucoromycota are listed. Among these, Aspergillus stands out as the genus with the greatest potential of infecting humans, comprising 16 species known to infect humans. Additionally, three other genera, Curvularia, Exophiala, and Trichophyton, are recognized as significant genera, each comprising 10 or more known human pathogenic species. A phylogenetic analysis based on partial sequences of the 28S nrRNA gene (LSU) of human fungal pathogens was performed to show their phylogenetic relationships and clarify their taxonomies. In addition, this review summarizes the recent advancements in fungal disease diagnosis and therapeutics.

Enteroviruses are among the most common viruses pathogenic to humans. They are associated with various forms of disease, ranging from mild respiratory illness to severe neurological diseases. In recent years, an increasing number of isolated cases of children developing meningitis or encephalitis as a result of enterovirus infection have been reported, as well as discrete enterovirus D68 outbreaks in North America in 2014 and 2016. We developed an assay to rapidly genotype enteroviruses by sequencing a region within the VP1 gene using nanopore Flongles. We retrospectively analyzed enterovirus-/rhinovirus-positive clinical samples from the Zurich, Switzerland area mainly collected during two seasons in 2019/2020 and 2021/2022. Respiratory, cerebrospinal fluid, and stool samples were analyzed. Whole-genome sequencing was performed on samples with ambiguous genotyping results and enterovirus D68-positive samples. Out of 255 isolates, a total of 95 different genotypes were found. A difference in the prevalence of enterovirus and rhinovirus infections was observed for both sample type and age group. In particular, children aged 0-4 years showed a higher frequency of enterovirus infections. Comparing the respiratory seasons, a higher prevalence was found, especially for enterovirus A and rhinovirus A after the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The enterovirus genotyping workflow provides a rapid diagnostic tool for individual analysis and continuous enterovirus surveillance.

In this study, we compared the occurrence, relative abundance (RA), and density (RD) of simple sequence repeats (SSRs) among the lineages of human pathogenic Cryptococcus gattii using an in-silico approach to gain a deeper understanding of the structure and evolution of their genomes. C. gattii isolate MF34 showed the highest RA and RD of SSRs in both the genomic and transcriptomic sequences, followed by isolate WM276. In both the genomic (50%) and transcriptomic (65%) sequences, trinucleotide SSRs were the most common SSR class. A motif conservation study found that the isolates had stronger conservation (56.1%) of motifs, with isolate IND107 having the most (5.7%) unique motifs. We discovered the presence of SSRs in genes that are directly or indirectly associated with disease using gene enrichment analysis. Isolate-specific unique motifs identified in this study could be utilized as molecular probes for isolate identification. To improve genetic resources among C. gattii isolates, 6499 primers were developed. These genomic resources developed in this study could help with diversity analysis and the development of isolate-specific markers.

Lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMOs) are redox enzymes widely studied for their involvement in microbial and fungal biomass degradation. The catalytic versatility of these enzymes is demonstrated by the recent discovery of LPMOs in arthropods, viruses, insects and ferns, where they fulfill diverse functions beyond biomass conversion. This mini-review puts a spotlight on a recently recognized aspect of LPMOs: their role in infectious processes in human pathogens. It discusses the occurrence and potential biological mechanisms of LPMOs associated with human pathogens and provides an outlook on future avenues in this emerging and exciting research field.