Investigation of Virulence Genes Detected in Antimicrobial-Resistance Pathogens Isolates for Five Countries across the World

A large portion of annual deaths worldwide are due to infections caused by disease-causing pathogens. These pathogens contain virulence genes, which encode mechanisms that facilitate infection and microbial survival in hosts. More recently, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes, also found in these pathogens, have become an increasingly large issue. While the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Pathogen Detection Isolates Browser (NPDIB) database has been compiling genes involved in microbial virulence and antimicrobial resistance through isolate samples, few studies have identified the genes primarily responsible for virulence and compared them to those responsible for AMR. This study performed the first multivariate statistical analysis of the multidimensional NPDIB data to identify the major virulence genes from historical pathogen isolates for Australia, China, South Africa, UK, and US—the largely populated countries from five of the six major continents.