With the genome sequencing, the researchers estimated that the bacteria in the two urine samples diverged from a common ancestor one to two years before the woman\u2019s current state. Then, more recently, the hypervirulent urine bacteria disseminated, spreading to the woman\u2019s brain.<\/p>\n
The woman\u2019s doctors noted that two years before her brain abscess, she was hospitalized with a urinary tract infection.<\/p>\n
Heterovirulence<\/p>\n
Bacterial evolution within a single patient is not particularly new. Infecting bacteria often adapt to have a fitness advantage in their victim. But in most cases, the variant with the biggest edge overtakes the population. In less common cases, the population splits. This has been seen when bacteria are trying to survive antibiotic treatments. In this case, some variants become more resistant to the treatment, but the resistance comes at a cost\u2014slower growth or less virulence, for example. This keeps them from dominating. Instead, they remain as a subpopulation. This scenario is called \u2018heteroresistance,\u2019 which is linked to treatment failure.<\/p>\n
In the woman\u2019s case, all three isolates were susceptible to antibiotics\u2014some good news. She was able to be treated with antibiotics to clear the infection. Further, most patients with K. pneumoniae brain abscesses recover, though there were no follow-up details of how her neurologic or vision recovery went.<\/p>\n
While her infection didn\u2019t have heteroresistance, it had something new: heterovirulence. The hypervirulent subpopulation had a fitness disadvantage in the urinary tract\u2014the origin of the infection. But it had an advantage for dissemination and virulence, spreading to the brain and eye.<\/p>\n
Overall, the researchers and doctors report that \u201cthis case shows the ability of K. pneumoniae to disseminate within a patient from a clinical (urinary) reservoir to distant body sites and highlights the potential for the emergence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the genome sequencing, the researchers estimated that the bacteria in the two urine samples diverged from a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60],"class_list":["post-564622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}