Acinetobacter baumannii analysis by core genome multi-locus sequence typing in two hospitals in Bolivia: endemicity of international clone 7 isolates (CC25)

• Published in: International journal of antimicrobial agents Vol. 53; no. 6; pp. 844 - 849
• Main Authors: Cerezales, Mónica, Xanthopoulou, Kyriaki, Wille, Julia, Bustamante, Zulema, Seifert, Harald, Gallego, Lucía, Higgins, Paul G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.06.2019
• Subjects: Acinetobacter baumannii; blaOXA-23; Carbapenem-resistant; International clone 7; Tn2008; Acinetobacter baumannii; Carbapenem-resistant; Tn2008; International clone 7; blaOXA-23
• ISSN: 0924-8579; 1872-7913
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2019.03.019

In total, 95 Acinetobacter baumannii isolates recovered from patients from two hospitals in Cochabamba, Bolivia were studied. The presence of class D and B β-lactamases was investigated using polymerase chain reaction, and antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed by agar dilution and broth microdilution. The resistance rate to carbapenems was 53.7%. All carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii (CRAb, n=51) and four carbapenem-susceptible isolates were further analysed by whole-genome sequencing. The resulting genome assemblies were used to identify the acquired resistome, and core genome multi-locus sequence typing (cgMLST) was used to determine their molecular epidemiology. All but one of the CRAb isolates (n=50) belonged to international clone (IC) 7 and they clustered into five sequence types; on cgMLST, they were found to be separated by ≥40 alleles. All CRAb isolates carried blaOXA-23 on transposon Tn2008. Metallo-β-lactamases were not detected. These data show that dissemination of several IC7 A. baumannii clones harbouring the carbapenem resistance determinant blaOXA-23 is occurring in these two hospitals in Cochambamba.