Potentially pathogenic bacteria may be lurking in hospital water supply pipes, according to new research that used advanced metagenomic techniques to identify organisms that traditional bacterial cultures miss.
Built infrastructures, such as the piping inside buildings, have a microbiome all their own, according to the collaborative team of researchers from the Atlanta-based Georgia Institute of Technology and the Environmental Protection Agency, which performed the research. Microbiologists are just beginning to understand the nature of that bacteria and how to analyze it. In a study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, the authors used next-generation sequencing on nucleic acid found in 40 hospital shower hoses to culture bacteria and determine whether it could be harmful to patients.
"We can say confidently that if pathogens are in there, they are not there in very high abundance," Kostas Konstantinidis, PhD, an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech, said in a statement. "But the organisms that we detected as abundant in these biofilms appear to have characteristics that could be of interest because they are related to some bacteria that are opportunistic pathogens that could pose a threat, especially to immunocompromised hospital patients."
Although no well-known pathogens were found, some new bacteria with characteristics of species known to be harmful were seen, and others had resistant genes which could be transferred to those that may be capable of causing infection.
"Metagenomics gives you a more complete and quantitative picture of what microorganisms are there and how abundant they are," Dr. Konstantinidis said. "This shows that traditional culture methods are limited in what they can detect, and that they can often provide a biased look at what is there."