PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.
Sec. Clinical and Diagnostic Microbiology and Immunology
This article is part of the Research TopicA One Health Approach to Infection Prevention and Antimicrobial ResistanceView all 10 articles
Tracking Spread of Carbapenemase-Producing Enterobacterales Between Humans and Companion Animals: Successes and Challenges
Provisionally accepted
Jaclyn Dietrich1
Paula M Snippes Vagnone2Jennifer L Dale2Amanda Beaudoin3Abbey Ruhland2Leslie Kollman2
Stephen D Cole1*- 1University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States
- 2Minnesota Department of Health, Saint Paul, United States
- 3University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, United States
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Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales (CPE) pose a critical public health threat. Recent reports highlight that CPE emergence in companion animals mirrors that found in humans, underscoring the need for a One Health approach to investigating transmission routes. This Perspective article outlines an interdisciplinary model developed as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded Pathogen Genomics Center of Excellence at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) to investigate CPE transmission across human and animal populations. This represents one of the first operational One Health models linking companion animal and human CPE via whole genome sequencing (WGS) at a state-level public health laboratory. Using WGS, 94 companion animal isolates were characterized and revealed diverse genetic lineages from December 2022 through December 2024 in the USA. Genetically linked clusters were identified, including CPE isolates from companion animals and humans. One notable cluster linked human infections with CPE detected in a veterinary hospital. Despite the success of this approach to detect clusters, there were significant challenges, including investigation delays related to sequencing and epidemiology priorities and capacity, resource constraints, and human participant hesitancy. Our findings demonstrate the importance of integrating genomic data with clinical and epidemiological insights, fostering communication between veterinary and public health sectors, and expanding veterinary WGS infrastructure. Ultimately, we advocate for broader public health engagement in veterinary settings to mitigate antimicrobial resistance and improve surveillance of zoonotic transmission pathways.
Keywords: carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales, companion animals, One Health, Public Health, Veterinary Medicine
Received: 23 Oct 2025; Accepted: 31 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Dietrich, Snippes Vagnone, Dale, Beaudoin, Ruhland, Kollman and Cole. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Stephen D Cole
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