Bacteria alarm in hospitals: Basel researchers discovered 35 new types of microbes

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Unknown microbes continue to emerge in hospitals. A team from the University and University Hospital Basel has been collecting such samples from patients with a wide range of diseases since 2014, the University of Basel announced on Monday.

When they analyzed these samples, they were unable to assign the 61 bacteria to any known species using traditional laboratory methods such as mass spectroscopy or sequencing a small piece of the genome. The researchers analyzed the entire genome of all these bacteria using a method that has only been available for a few years, according to the University of Basel.

Discoverer can choose names

It turned out that 26 of the bacterial species were already known. According to the researchers, genome sequences had only recently been deposited in databases or the microbes had been identified very recently. 35 of the bacterial species had not been discovered before.

Anyone who discovers a new species can choose its name. Basel researchers have so far identified two of the bacteria, according to the university. A bacterium was named Pseudoclavibacter triregionum after Basel’s location on the border of Switzerland, France and Germany.

Seven of the largely unnamed bacterial species are clinically important, meaning they have the capacity to cause infections in humans, according to the researchers’ analysis.

Most such bacteria are naturally found on the skin and mucous membranes of humans. “For this reason, it is often underestimated and little researched,” the leader of the study, Daniel Goldenberger, was quoted as saying in his statement. However, these can trigger infections if they penetrate the bloodstream, for example due to a tumor.

(SDA)

Source : Blick