Serratia marcescens
Colonial morphology of Serratia marcescens grown on sheep's blood agar. Copyright holder: Pete Seidel. Link: https://phil.cdc.gov/Details.aspx?pid=12462.
Recognized by their red pigmentation the species Serratia marcescens have in recent years seen an increased presence in hospitals as an opportunistic pathogen infecting immunocompromised individuals and in neonatal ICUs [1, 2].
This heterogenous genus of Enterobacteriaceae inhabits various niches such as plants, water, soil and insect commensals, but Serratia marcescens is the member of the Serratia genus that has seen a larger increase as a hospital acquired infection (HAI) than other members of the genus.
Serratia marcescens displays intrinsic resistance to several antimicrobials such as macrolides, tetracyclines and β-lactams.
This intrinsic resistance in combination with the potential for acquiring more resistances through horizontal gene transfer make it important to keep track of Serratia marcescens [3].1928 offers a pipeline for tracking Serratia marcescens and predicting its resistance markers.
1928 offers the following analyses of S. marcescens:
- cgMLST (core genome MLST), typing with finer resolution than traditional MLST with our own schema built from 2124 genes.
- Genotypic prediction of resistance genes.
- SNP analysis for higher resolution of outbreaks.
References
- Arslan, U., Erayman, I., Kirdar, S., Yuksekkaya, S., Cimen, O., Tuncer, I., & Bozdogan, B. (2010). Serratia marcescens sepsis outbreak in a neonatal intensive care unit. Pediatrics International, 52(2), 208-212. [CrossRef]
- Cristina, M. L., Sartini, M., & Spagnolo, A. M. (2019). Serratia marcescens infections in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(4), 610. [CrossRef]
- Hopkins ABX Guide. (2017). Serratia Bacteria. Retrieved from http://prod.hopkins-abxguide.org/pathogens/bacteria/full_serratia_species.html.