Enhancing the whole genome sequence(WGS)based surveillance of Salmonella, Listeria and Shiga Toxin producing Escherichia coli(STEC) isolated from food and environment at the national and global level

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Salmonella, Listeria and STEC isolated from retail meat, fresh produce and their environment have been implicated as the leading causes of bacterial foodborne illness in the US and around the world. It is important that we monitor the prevalence and trends of important foodborne bacterial strains in food products that can eventually pass to the consumers along the farm-to-fork chain resulting in significant public health impact. It is, therefore, important to expand the current surveillance network and monitor these important pathogens at the global scale to prevent future outbreaks. We propose to do this in collaboration with the WHO-AGISAR (Advisory Committee on Integrated Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance) which funds countries to conduct surveillance of antimicrobial resistant foodborne bacterial pathogens in humans, food products and the environment. We strongly believe that the data generated through the proposed work will assist in monitoring Salmonella, Listeria and STEC from at the international level where current surveillance systems are not robust enough to track them. The WGS data and metadata will significantly improve the power to resolve outbreaks by helping to quickly link clinical and retail product samples and assist in outbreak investigations. The PD (Dr. Thakur) laboratory, in partnership with the NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (NCDACS), is a GenomeTrakr collaborating laboratory. Our proposal will significantly assist us in tracking emergence of potential new Salmonella, Listeria and STEC strains and allow the public health agencies to take appropriate steps to safeguard human and animal health at the global level. The specific objectives of our proposal are: 1) Establish a robust surveillance system based on whole genome sequence (WGS) profile of 400 Salmonella, Listeria and STEC isolated from food and environmental sources within and outside the US. 2) Compare the WGS profiles of Salmonella, Listeria and STEC at the global scale to assist in outbreak investigations and track emerging strains of public health importance. The long-term objective of our proposal is to protect and promote public health by strengthening the surveillance of Salmonella, Listeria and STEC within and outside the US by generating critical WGS data and contributing to the GenomeTrakr mission.