Abstract
A comprehensive evaluation of every patient with a bloodstream infection includes an attempt to identify the infectious source. Pathogens can originate from various places, such as the gut microbiota, skin and the external environment. Identifying the definitive origin of an infection would enable precise interventions focused on management of the source(1,2). Unfortunately, hospital infection control practices are often informed by assumptions about the source of various specific pathogens; if these assumptions are incorrect, they lead to interventions that do not decrease pathogen exposure(3). Here, we develop and apply a streamlined bioinformatic tool, named StrainSifter, to match bloodstream pathogens precisely to a candidate source. We then leverage this approach to interrogate the gut microbiota as a potential reservoir of bloodstream pathogens in a cohort of hematopoietic cell transplantation recipients. We find that patients with Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae bloodstream infections have concomitant gut colonization with these organisms, suggesting that the gut may be a source of these infections. We also find cases where typically nonenteric pathogens, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus epidermidis, are found in the gut microbiota, thereby challenging the existing informal dogma of these infections originating from environmental or skin sources. Thus, we present an approach to distinguish the source of various bloodstream infections, which may facilitate more accurate tracking and prevention of hospital-acquired infections.