Soil biomes are vast, exceptionally diverse and crucial to the health of ecosystems and societies. Soils also contain an appreciable, but understudied, diversity of opportunistic human pathogens. With climate change and other forms of environmental degradation potentially increasing exposure risks to soilborne pathogens, it is necessary to gain a better understanding of their ecological drivers. Here we use the Galleria mellonella insect virulence model to selectively isolate pathogenic bacteria from soils in Cornwall (UK). We find a high prevalence of pathogenic soil bacteria with two genera, Providencia and Serratia, being especially common. Providencia alcalifaciens, P. rustigianii, Serratia liquefaciens and S. plymuthica strains were studied in more detail using phenotypic virulence and antibiotic resistance assays and whole‐genome sequencing. Both genera displayed low levels of antibiotic resistance and antibiotic resistance gene carriage. However, Serratia isolates were found to carry the recently characterized metallo‐β‐lactamase blaSPR‐1 that, although not conferring high levels of resistance in these strains, poses a potential risk of horizontal transfer to other pathogens where it could be fully functional. The Galleria assay can be a useful approach to uncover the distribution and identity of pathogenic bacteria in the environment, as well as uncover resistance genes with an environmental origin.

中文翻译：

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确定土壤中细菌病原体的患病率，身份和可能来源

土壤生物群落广阔，异常多样化，对生态系统和社会的健康至关重要。土壤中还含有大量但尚未充分研究的机会性人类病原体。由于气候变化和其他形式的环境退化可能会增加土壤传播病原体的暴露风险，因此有必要更好地了解其生态驱动因素。在这里，我们使用Malleria mellonella昆虫毒力模型从英国康沃尔郡的土壤中选择性分离致病菌。我们发现具有两个属的普罗维登西亚（Provenncia）和沙雷氏菌（Serratia）致病性土壤细菌的患病率很高，尤其常见。普罗维登斯氏菌，锈病沙雷氏菌，液态沙雷氏菌使用表型毒力和抗生素耐药性分析以及全基因组测序对S. plymuthica菌株和S. plymuthica菌株进行了更详细的研究。两个属均显示出低水平的抗生素抗性和抗生素抗性基因携带。然而，发现沙雷氏菌的分离物带有最近鉴定的金属-β-内酰胺酶bla SPR-1，尽管这些菌株没有赋予高水平的抗性，但可能水平转移到可能完全起作用的其他病原体中。的拱廊测定可以是揭示在环境中的分布和病原菌的身份，以及与环境原点揭开抗性基因的有用方法。