Diagnostics, Antimicrobial Resistance, and Emerging Bacterial Pathogens

A special issue of Pathogens (ISSN 2076-0817). This special issue belongs to the section "Bacterial Pathogens".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2026 | Viewed by 464

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
1. Department of Laboratory Medicine, Royal University Hospital, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
2. Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Interests: antimicrobial agents/resistance; rapid diagnostics; molecular diagnostics; bacterial infections; infection stewardship
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Infectious diseases continue to be a dominant global problem affecting all corners of the global population with varying morbidity and mortality.  Bacterial, fungal/yeast, viral and parasitic pathogens require accurate and rapid diagnosis in order to optimize patient care but also to identify and potentially contain outbreaks, support infection prevention and control, support antimicrobial and laboratory stewardship programs and to identify new or emerging infectious disease threats.  For optimization of patient care, rapid and accurate diagnostics serves a number of important roles: first, organism identification to tailor specific antimicrobial therapy; second, detection of antimicrobial resistance prompting changes to more appropriate therapy; third, the need for inpatient versus outpatient therapy thereby affecting bed management and fourth, the potential impacts on cost of therapy and therapy de-escalation.  The development of various technologies with multiplex targets truly allows for syndromic testing (e.g., respiratory, gastrointestinal, sepsis, central nervous system) of multiple pathogens (bacterial, viral, yeast) simultaneously along with the detection of resistance conferring genes, often with same day results. For STAT testing, some assays yield results in 1-2 hours. Additionally, the ongoing need for advanced laboratories to develop novel assays is critical for innovation and for emerging pathogen detection. Expanding capabilities of Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization –Time of Flight (MALDI-TOF) may contribute to the exciting developments of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Clinical Microbiology. This Special Issue looks to bridge the areas of diagnostics, antimicrobial resistance and emerging bacterial pathogens with a collection of peer-reviewed articles that may be primary research papers, review articles or opinion pieces.

Dr. Joseph M. Blondeau
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
  • emerging bacterial pathogens
  • rapid diagnostics
  • molecular diagnostics
  • infection stewardship

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 2671 KB  
Article
Bactericidal Activity of Pradofloxacin and Other Antimicrobials Against Swine Respiratory Bacterial Pathogens
by Joseph M. Blondeau and Shantelle D. Fitch
Pathogens 2025, 14(11), 1171; https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens14111171 - 17 Nov 2025
Viewed by 272
Abstract
Swine respiratory disease (SRD) is a complex interaction whereby viral infection predisposes the host to secondary bacterial pulmonary invasion, which may be fatal. Antimicrobial agents remain an important therapy and serve to reduce morbidity and mortality in treated animals. Pradofloxacin is the newest [...] Read more.
Swine respiratory disease (SRD) is a complex interaction whereby viral infection predisposes the host to secondary bacterial pulmonary invasion, which may be fatal. Antimicrobial agents remain an important therapy and serve to reduce morbidity and mortality in treated animals. Pradofloxacin is the newest of the veterinary antibiotics to be approved to treat SRD. It is a dual-targeting fluoroquinolone with in vitro and clinical activity against Gram-negative and -positive bacteria, along with atypical agents including anaerobes. In this study, we compared the killing of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae, Pasteurella multocida, and Streptococcus suis by pradofloxacin and comparator antibiotics in a 3 h kill assay, using four clinically relevant drug concentrations. Pradofloxacin was bactericidal against the three pathogens, with kill rates ranging from 94.4 to 99.9% (A. pleuropneumoniae) following 15–20 min of exposure to the maximum serum and maximum tissue drug concentration. For P. multocida, the kill rates were 68.7–96.9% following 5–30 min of drug exposure at the maximum serum drug concentration, and 91.7% following 5 min of drug exposure at the maximum tissue drug concentration. For S. suis, pradofloxacin killed 92.4–99.4% and 71.6–97.1% of cells following 60–180 min of drug exposure at the maximum serum and maximum tissue drug concentration, respectively. Pradofloxacin appears to be an important addition to the drugs currently available for treating SRD. Full article
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