Profiling the gut microbiota to assess infection risk in Klebsiella pneumoniae -colonized patients

• Published in: Gut microbes Vol. 17; no. 1; p. 2468358
• Main Authors: De Maio, Flavio, Bianco, Delia Mercedes, Santarelli, Giulia, Rosato, Roberto, Monzo, Francesca Romana, Fiori, Barbara, Sanguinetti, Maurizio, Posteraro, Brunella
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Taylor & Francis Group 01.12.2025
• Subjects: Aged; Bacteria - classification; Bacteria - genetics; Bacteria - isolation & purification; colonization; Feces - microbiology; Female; Gastrointestinal Microbiome - genetics; Genotype; Gut microbiota; Humans; Klebsiella Infections - microbiology; Klebsiella pneumoniae - classification; Klebsiella pneumoniae - drug effects; Klebsiella pneumoniae - genetics; Klebsiella pneumoniae - isolation & purification; Male; Middle Aged; Risk Assessment; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S - genetics; Gut microbiota; colonization; genotype
• ISSN: 1949-0976; 1949-0984; 1949-0984
• DOI: 10.1080/19490976.2025.2468358

Vornhagen et al. introduced a model combining gut microbiota structure and genotype to assess infection risk in -colonized patients. Building on their findings, we investigated the gut microbiota composition and genotype in 16 colonized patients, five of whom had bloodstream infections at the time of fecal sampling. Importantly, we did not apply the original machine learning model due to the small sample size of our cohort. Instead, we explored the distribution of key antimicrobial resistance and stress resistance genes and analyzed gut community structure based on amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) of the V3-V4 16S rRNA region. Notably, distinct gene profiles were observed in both infected and non-infected patients, and three patients without bloodstream infections showed no detectable ASVs despite microbiological confirmation of colonization. These findings highlight the need to integrate gut microbiota composition data into infection risk assessment and address limitations in taxonomic resolution and sample size. Future studies should aim to develop streamlined tools for clinical application in -colonized patients.