Prevalence, Virulence, Antimicrobial Resistance, and Molecular Characterization of Isolates From Drinking Water in China.

is an important opportunistic pathogen and remains a major threat to the microbial safety of drinking water. There is a lack of comprehensive data on . contamination in drinking water in China. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the prevalence, genetic diversity, virulence genes, and antimicrobial resistance of . isolated from mineral water and spring water in China. From January 2013 to January 2014, 314 drinking water samples were collected from 23 cities in China. Of the collected samples, 77 (24.5%) were contaminated with , and these comprised 34 raw water (30.4%), 39 activated carbon-filtered water (30.6%), and four final water product (3.9%). A total of 132 isolates were obtained, and all of them showed the presence of virulence genes, with the detection rates of , , , , and genes being 7.6, 86.3, 95.5, 89.4, and 100%, respectively. All isolates were sensitive to the 14 antibiotics (ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, ofloxacin, norfloxacin, gentamicin, tobramycin, amikacin, polymyxin B, imipenem, meropenem, aztreonam, ceftazidime, cefepime, and piperacillin/tazobactam) tested. The 132 isolates were categorized into 42 sequence types according to multilocus sequence typing, and ST235 accounted for 8.3% (11) of the total isolates. Thus, this study provides comprehensive data on the prevalence and characteristics of in drinking water in China and can aid in developing preventive measures against contamination during the drinking water treatment process.