Collection
Recent Developments on Pathogenicity, Ecology, Virulence, and Antibiotic Resistance in Acinetobacter spp.
Acinetobacter spp. and in particular Acinetobacter baumannii are known to be opportunistic human pathogens that may be sources of critical human health problems mainly due to their ability to evolute toward either multidrug- or pandrug resistance. Although few therapeutic options still remain available in many infectious contexts and in many geographical areas, recent developments in term of therapeutical options open new alternatives. Meanwhile, there is an advanced knowledge gained in relation with the ecological distribution of Acinetobacter spp., with increasing reports of animal and environmental reservoirs that may provide opportunities to better identify, trace and eventually control the most worrying spreading clonal backgrounds, as well as their associated transferable resistance determinants. On the other hand, recent works allowed to better characterize some specific properties in relation with human pathogenesis and virulence traits. Finally, novel epidemiological tools including next-generation sequencing allowed to better evaluate the Acinetobacter epidemiology at large scale, and consequently better figure out the interplay possibly existing between different ecological (community, nosocomial, animal) sources. Altogether, significant achievements are being made in the comprehension of all those epidemiological, fundamental and clinical aspects of Acinetobacter.
Such evaluations and investigations will find perfect room in this Topical Collection of EJCMID that will be welcoming all studies in relation to that topic.
Editors
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Laurent Poirel
Laurent Poirel (PhD) is Associate Professor at the Emerging Resistance to Antibiotics Research Unit and Swiss National Reference Center for Emerging Antibiotic Resistance at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. His research interests emerging mechanisms of resistance to ß-lactams, polymyxins, and quinolones in Gram-negative rods in human and veterinary medicine. He is specialized on the genetics of acquisition of resistance genes in Enterobacterales, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii, plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance, and polymyxin resistance determinants in Enterobacterales.
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Nabil Karah
Nabil Karah (MD) (PhD) is a Researcher at the Department of Molecular Biology, Umea University, Sweden.
