Evidence of Sharing ofKlebsiella pneumoniaeStrains between Healthy Companion Animals and Cohabiting Humans
ABSTRACTThis study aimed to characterize the fecal colonization and sharing ofKlebsiella pneumoniaestrains between companion animals and humans living in close contact. Fecal samples were collected from 50 healthy participants (24 humans, 18 dogs, and 8 cats) belonging to 18 households. Samples were plated onto MacConkey agar (MCK) plates with and without cefotaxime or meropenem supplementation. Up to fiveK. pneumoniaecolonies per participant were compared by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) after XbaI restriction.K. pneumoniaestrains with unique pulse types from each participant were characterized for antimicrobial susceptibility, virulence genes, and multilocus sequence type (MLST). FecalK. pneumoniaepulse types were compared to those of clinicalK. pneumoniaestrains from animal and human patients with urinary tract infections (n = 104).K. pneumoniaecolonization was detected in nonsupplemented MCK in around 38% of dogs (n = 7) and humans (n = 9).K. pneumoniaestrains isolated from dogs belonged to sequence type 17 (ST17), ST188, ST252, ST281, ST423, ST1093, ST1241, ST3398, and ST3399. None of theK. pneumoniaestrains were multidrug resistant or hypervirulent. Two households included multiple colonized participants. Notably, two colonized dogs within household 15 (H15) shared a strain each (ST252 and ST1241) with one coliving human. One dog from H16 shared one PFGE-undistinguishableK. pneumoniaeST17 strain with two humans from different households; however, the antimicrobial susceptibility phenotypes of these three strains differed. Two main virulence genotypes were detected, namelyfimH-1 mrkD ycfM entB kfuandfimH-1 mrkD ycfM entB kpn. These results highlight the potential role of dogs as a reservoir ofK. pneumoniaeto humans and vice versa. Furthermore, to our best knowledge, this is the first report of healthy humans and dogs sharingK. pneumoniaestrains that were undistinguishable by PFGE/MLST.