ArticleMicrobiology (Reading, England)2026
Testing the drivers of environmental persistence in bacterial pathogens.
Article in Microbiology (Reading, England), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Testing the drivers of environmental persistence in bacterial pathogens.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Bacterial pathogens can increase transmission opportunities by surviving in the external environment, but despite wide variation in this ability, the drivers of such differences remain poorly understood. Here, we comparatively analysed data from 47 studies on 29 bacterial pathogens to investigate how phylogeny, structural traits (cell wall structure), life history (transmission mode, lifestyle, generation time) and abiotic conditions (temperature, humidity and surface material) influence persistence following deposition on inert surfaces. Our results showed that bacterial species differ consistently in persistence, but not in a way predicted by phylogeny. Of the bacterial traits, cell wall structure had a significant effect, with Gram-positive bacteria showing longer survival times. In contrast, transmission mode, lifestyle and generation time had no consistent effect on persistence. Bacteria also survived longer on inorganic surfaces, but with no significant effect of temperature or humidity. These findings indicate that both bacterial structural traits and abiotic conditions may play crucial roles in shaping bacterial persistence in the environment, likely through effects on resistance to hypoosmotic stress. How the benefits of persisting in dry external environments, for instance, by harbouring a Gram-positive cell wall, trade off with survival in hyperosmotic conditions or in the face of immune defences, however, remain to be determined.
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