Defining genomic epidemiology thresholds for common-source bacterial outbreaks: a modelling study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Epidemiological surveillance relies on microbial strain typing, which defines genomic relatedness among isolates to identify case clusters and their potential sources. Although predefined thresholds are often applied, known outbreak-specific features such as pathogen mutation rate and duration of source contamination are rarely considered. We aimed to develop a hypothesis-based model that estimates genetic distance thresholds and mutation rates for point-source single-strain food or environmental outbreaks.

Methods

In this modelling study, we developed a forward model to simulate bacterial evolution at a specific mutation rate (μ) over a defined outbreak duration (D). From the distribution of genetic distances expected under the given outbreak parameters and sampl

SUBMITTER: Duval A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10156608 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature