Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) are gram-negative bacteria that are resistant to carbapenems, a group of antibiotics considered as the last-resource for the treatment of infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria. CRE constitutes a major threat to health care systems because infections caused by these pathogens are difficult to treat and are commonly associated with high mortality due to the limited availability of effective antibiotics. While infection prevention and timely detection are of vital importance to control CRE infections, developing new and effective anti-CRE therapies is also crucial. Accumulating evidence indicates that gut microbiota alteration (dysbiosis) is associated with an increased intestinal colonization with CRE and consequently with higher risk of developing CRE infections. Importantly, therapeutic interventions aimed to modify the gut microbiota composition via fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) have been explored in various clinical settings with some of them showing promising results, although larger clinical trials are needed to confirm the efficacy of this strategy. Here, we highlight the challenges associated with the emergence of CRE infections.

Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are the most common sexually transmitted pathogens worldwide and among the more than 200 identified HPV types, approximately 15 high risk (HR-HPV) types are oncogenic, being strongly associated with the development of cervical cancer, anogenital cancers and an increasing fraction of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC). HPV-associated cervix cancer accounts for 83% of HPV-attributable cancers, and more than two-thirds of those cases occur in developing countries. Despite the high frequency of HPV infections, in most cases, the virus is cleared by the host immune response and only a small proportion of infected individuals develop persistent infections that can result in malignant transformation, indicating that other elements, including biological, genetic and environmental factors may influence the individual susceptibility to HPV-associated cancers. Previous studies have quantified that heritability, in the form of genetic variants, common in the general population, is implicated in nearly 30% of cervical cancers and a large number of studies conducted across various populations have identified genetic variants that appear to be associated with genes that predispose or protect the host to HPV infections thereby affecting individual susceptibility to HPV-associated cancers. In this article, we provide an overview of gene association studies on HPV-associated cancers with emphasis on genome-wide association study (GWAS) that have identified novel genetic factors linked to HPV infection or HPV-associated cancers.