A comprehensive list of bacterial pathogens infecting humans

Author

Abigail Bartlett, Daniel Padfield, Luke Lear, Richard Bendall and Michiel Vos

Doi

https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.001269

Citation

Bartlett, A., Padfield, D., Lear, L., Bendall, R., & Vos, M. (2022). A comprehensive list of bacterial pathogens infecting humans. Microbiology, 168(12), 001269.

Abstract

There exists an enormous diversity of bacteria capable of human infection, but no up-to-date, publicly accessible list is available. Combining a pragmatic definition of pathogenicity with an extensive search strategy, we report 1513 bacterial pathogens known to infect humans described pre-2021. Of these, 73 % were regarded as established (have infected at least three persons in three or more references) and 27 % as putative (fewer than three known cases). Pathogen species belong to 10 phyla and 24 classes scattered throughout the bacterial phylogeny. We show that new human pathogens are discovered at a rapid rate. Finally, we discuss how our results could be expanded to a database, which could provide a useful resource for microbiologists. Our list is freely available and archived on GitHub and Zenodo and we have provided walkthroughs to facilitate access and use.