Epidemiology and Molecular Pathogenesis of Antimicrobial Resistance and Virulence for Foodborne Pathogens: 2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

Foodborne diseases are an important public health problem worldwide and have an important impact on trade, travel, and development. Globally, foodborne diseases are still not under control, and outbreaks can cause health problems and economic losses. The causes are unhygienic practices in food production, harvesting, and preparation. There are several foodborne pathogens causing diseases, among which the significant ones are Campylobacter, Nontyphoidal salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, Colostredium, and Listeria.

These foodborne agents can enter the food chain through multiple sources, some of which could be through cross contamination during food production or processing. Moreover, most agents can be transmitted via routes other than food, including water, farm animals, pets, and/or humans. Determining the source of foodborne infections could be challenging because of the incubation period after exposure to infection, and the most recently consumed food may be mistakenly suspected. In addition, source tracking of the foodborne causative agent might be difficult due to the unavailability of the suspected food source for further analysis. Thus, molecular typing of agents isolated from cases spread over a wide geographic area is another way to determine the source of foodborne infection.

Furthermore, the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious global public health threat as well as a threat to animal health and food safety. There are diverse mechanisms that promote drug resistance. It is known that the use of sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics in humans or food-producing animals promotes mutations of some chromosomal genes. Also, the horizontal transfer of resistance genes as groups (“cassettes”) or plasmids makes the spread of resistance to different bacterial genera possible, among which there could be pathogens. Further molecular characterization studies and whole-genomic sequence analyses of variable foodborne pathogens to identify their plasmid content and assess antimicrobial resistance and virulence factors should lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms of AMR and virulence factors.

With the development and wide application of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) in recent studies over the last decade, there have been many advances in the understanding of microbial genetics. However, further epidemiological and molecular pathogensis studies are still warranted to develop a better understanding of the natural history of different foodborne pathogens and their virulence and AMR mechanisms.

Despite several published research studies investigating foodborne outbreaks as well as the implemented intervention strategies to control them, many people are still getting sick, and more outbreaks are happening. To prevent similar outbreaks from happening in the future, further studies are imperative to assess in depth and determine the steps and trends necessary to contain future outbreaks.

This Special Issue will cover a wide range of topics focusing on the epidemiology and molecular pathogenesis of AMR and the virulence of different foodborne pathogens. The aim is to help enhance our current knowledge of these pathogens and their respective diseases.

All types of articles will be considered for publication, including short reports, primary research articles, and reviews.

We look forward to receiving your contribution.

Dr. Yasser Sanad
Dr. Steven Foley
Dr. Mohamed K. Fakhr
Guest Editors

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• Salmonella
• Campylobacter
• Listeria
• Verbrio
• Eschrishia coli
• STEC
• Colostredium
• antimicrobial resistance
• virulence
• plasmids
• invasion
• persistence
• whole-genome sequences (WGS)
• molecular epidemiology
• epidemiology