Hospital Water Networks and Effluent in the Rise of High-Risk Bacterial Threats

This Research Topic directly aligns with the Emerging Bacterial Threats and Antibiotic Resistance section by addressing hospital water systems as environments where high-risk and emerging bacterial pathogens, including antimicrobial-resistant strains, can emerge, persist, and spread. Water networks, drains, and effluent act as ecological and evolutionary hubs that facilitate horizontal gene transfer, plasmid exchange, and selection of high-risk resistant lineages. Understanding how these systems contribute to both the emergence of new bacterial threats and the amplification of antimicrobial resistance is essential for tracking bacterial and AMR evolution, improving surveillance, and informing effective infection-prevention strategies.Hospital water systems - including potable water, distribution pipes, drains, and effluent outlets - represent underappreciated ecological niches that enable persistence, evolution, and dissemination of high-risk bacterial pathogens. Hospitals provide hotspots for horizontal gene transfer, facilitating exchange of resistance and virulence genes between environmental and clinical bacteria. With pressure from disinfectants, antibiotics, and nutrient-rich waste streams, these environments can accelerate the emergence of high-risk lineages. Additional selective forces such as temperature, flow dynamics, and surface properties further shape the evolution and adaptation of both environmental and clinically relevant bacteria. Biofilms in pipes, contaminated sinks, wastewater treatment deficits, and plumbing system design flaws all create environments where high-risk pathogens can thrive, exchange genetic material, and seed clinical infections.To advance understanding of how hospital water systems act as reservoirs and evolutionary hubs for both emerging high-risk pathogens and antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, this Research Topic encompasses interdisciplinary research addressing hospital water systems as underrecognized reservoirs of high-risk and antimicrobial-resistant bacteria. We invite submissions covering microbiology, genomics, engineering, epidemiology, and environmental sciences, with particular focus on research on the genomic, ecological, and selective processes within water networks that drive emerging bacterial threats and AMR evolution. Submissions may include surveillance data and epidemiology, mechanistic studies, plasmid ecology, metagenomics, and risk assessments aimed at understanding how environmental reservoirs contribute to hospital burdens of high-risk, emerging, and antimicrobial-resistant bacteria.Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:- Microbial community structure and biofilm ecology in hospital water networks, drains, and effluent systems- Selective pressures (e.g., disinfectants, antibiotics, temperature, flow, nutrient loads) shaping bacterial adaptation and AMR evolution in water-associated environments- Plasmid and phage-mediated gene transfer and other horizontal gene transfer mechanisms that facilitate the emergence and spread of high-risk and resistant lineages- Wastewater-clinical transmission pathways and integrated surveillance approaches linking environmental and clinical isolates- System-level assessments of water and wastewater infrastructure vulnerabilities, including plumbing design, treatment processes, and engineering controls- Quantitative risk assessments, environmental surveillance strategies, and evaluations of mitigation or intervention measures targeting water-associated reservoirs- Studies employing metagenomics, environmental surveillance, quantitative risk assessment, or evaluation of mitigation strategies are particularly relevant.We are especially seeking original research articles and review contributions.If you are interested in submitting or have any questions, please contact the journal email: bacteriology@frontiersin.org. Topic editors: Lenka Davidova Gerzova, Mecky Matee Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/77299/hospital-water-networks-and-effluent-in-the-rise-of-high-risk-bacterial-threats