The origin of Acinetobacter baumannii TYTH-1: a comparative genomics study
Introduction
In the last two decades, Acinetobacter baumannii has gradually emerged worldwide as a nosocomial pathogen. Common infections include ventilator-associated pneumonia, bacteraemia, burn wound infections and urinary tract infections [1]. Acinetobacter infections may pose difficulties because nosocomial isolates are typically resistant to a wide variety of antimicrobial agents. Carbapenems, primarily imipenem and meropenem, have been used to treat multidrug-resistant A. baumannii (MDR-AB) infections [1]. However, there are increasing reports of carbapenem resistance in A. baumannii. To date, one of the most important ways that the spread of multidrug resistance in the hospital environment is enhanced is via the horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes within a shared gene pool [2]. Several reports have shown that large antibiotic resistance islands (AbaRs) mediated by horizontal gene transfer were found in the genomes of epidemic A. baumannii strains [3]. In addition, these AbaRs in A. baumannii strains of the same lineage shared the same origin [4]. These results imply that AbaRs may play important roles in the resistance of A. baumannii strains and may serve as evolutionary candidates.
Recently, the rapid increase in MDR-AB, particularly carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii (CRAB), has become a significant public health concern [1]. Several class D β-lactamases [carbapenem-hydrolysing class D β-lactamases (CHDLs)], including OXA-23, OXA-24, OXA-58 and intrinsic OXA-51-like enzymes, are known to be important contributors to carbapenem resistance [5]. Among the OXA-type carbapenemases, OXA-23 is now a candidate gene in CRAB isolated from several countries [6].
A previous report from China showed that clonal spread of blaOXA-23-carrying imipenem-resistant A. baumannii (IRAB) isolates was identified in 16 cities in China in 2005 [7]. In our previous study, which was conducted in a regional hospital in Taiwan, the emergence and spread of blaOXA-23-carrying IRAB in Taiwan occurred from 2006 to 2007 [8]. In addition, the appearance of blaOXA-23-carrying IRAB was reported in several hospitals in Taiwan in 2007 [9]. To date, three complete A. baumannii genome sequences [MDR-ZJ06 (Zhejiang, China), TCDC-AB0715 (Taiwan) and MDR-TJ (Tianjin, China)] were released between 2011 and 2012 [10], [11], [12]. Notably, MDR-ZJ06 was one of the major clones disseminated in several cities in China [7] and the strain was isolated in 2006. Based on phylogenetic analysis of all completed A. baumannii genomes, these three genomes are closely related [10] and all three strains possess blaOXA-23 and blaOXA-66 genes.
In this study, to determine the genetic basis of IRAB strains and the genetic lineages of Taiwan clones and two other clones isolated in China, TYTH-1 was completely sequenced and comparative analyses were performed.
Section snippets
Hospital setting and bacterial isolates
The Hsin-Chu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) is a regional teaching hospital with 699 ward beds in northern Taiwan. All clinical imipenem-resistant Acinetobacter spp. isolates collected between January 2005 and December 2008 were stored at −80 °C in trypticase soy broth (Difco Laboratories, Detroit, MI) supplemented with 20% glycerol before testing. Isolates were transported to the clinical microbiology laboratory of Yuanpei University (Hsin-Chu City, Taiwan) for further
Trends for carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB) and blaOXA-23-carrying CRAB
The rapidly increasing incidence of CRAB (5% in 2005 to 51% in 2008) and blaOXA-23-carrying CRAB (0% in 2005 to 47% in 2008) is shown in Fig. 1A. Monthly surveillance studies between 2007 and 2008 showed that this trend started in August 2007 (Fig. 1B). In addition, PFGE typing demonstrated that an outbreak occurred between April 2007 and April 2008. Of the patients with clonally related isolates, none of them were abroad 2 months before their admission to the NTUH Hsin-Chu Branch.
Susceptibility profiles
The minimum
Discussion
The emergence and spread of blaOXA-23,-24/40,-58 CRAB in Asia-Pacific nations was identified between 2006 and 2007 [6]. Notably, the first report regarding the outbreak of blaOXA-23-carrying CRAB in a Chinese hospital was recorded in 2003 [26]. Furthermore, the wide spread of outbreak strains occurred in 16 cities in China in 2005 [7]. In Taiwan, the first report noting the occurrence of blaOXA-23-carrying CRAB was documented at the NTUH Hsin-Chu Branch in 2006 [8]. According to this report, no
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the members of the Department of Laboratory, National Taiwan University Hospital Hsin-Chu Branch (Hsin-Chu City, Taiwan) for providing clinical isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii.
Funding: The present work was supported by a grant from the National Science Council (grant NSC 100-2221-E-126 -010–MY3).
Competing interest: None declared.
Ethical approval: Not required.
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2014, GenomicsCitation Excerpt :The presence of three tra genes, traC, traD and traU, encoding the F-type T4SS proteins responsible for pilus tip formation, protein coupling and mate pair stabilization, in all the A. baumannii isolates was confirmed by PCR using the 3 following sets of primers: traC (F, 5′-ACAT AATTTCGATGGGTATTCATATC-3′; R, 5′-CCATTTTGCCATTTTAC TTTCAG-3), traD (F, 5′-GAATTACATGCTAATGGTATACACT-3′; R, 5′-TTATCA ACATGCTTTGAAGCA-3′), and traU (F, 5′-ACAACGATTAGCAGCAAAAAT-3′; R, 5′-ATCTGATATTTATATGCTGTTTTATCCAT-3′). The genomic DNA of A. baumannii TYTH-1 was prepared, sequenced and assembled as previously described [20]. When the TYTH-1 chromosome was completely assembled, in silico analysis of the plasmids was performed by BLAST search (blastn) using the remnants of the contigs and the A. baumannii ACICU-pACICU2 plasmid sequence (GenBank accession number NC_010606).
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These two authors contributed equally to this paper.