AUTHOR=Arcari Gabriele , De Francesco Alice , Polani Riccardo , Carattoli Alessandra , Capitani Valerio 

TITLE=Development of a Providencia stuartii multilocus sequence typing scheme

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=Volume 15 - 2024

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1493621

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2024.1493621

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=IntroductionThe Providencia genus is assuming greater clinical relevance among infections caused by Enterobacterales also because of its intrinsic and acquired resistance to last-resort antibiotics. However, despite having been known and studied for over 50 years, genomics and taxonomy of the Providencia genus are currently undergoing a deep rearrangement. In this study we aim to outline and characterized the P. stuartii species.MethodsWe retrieved from the GenBank database all genomes labelled as Providencia and performed a comprehensive genome-based species definition founded on average nucleotide identity (ANI) and on alignment-free approaches.ResultsAfter defining the genomes assuredly identifiable as P. stuartii, we devised a MultiLocus Sequence Typing (MLST) and a core-genome MLST (cgMLST) schemes, based on 7 and 2,296 loci respectively.DiscussionThis work hence provides a framework for understanding the role of P. stuartii and of other members of this genus, which should be considered as emerging multidrug-resistant pathogens.