Class D β-lactamases: are they all carbapenemases?

Abstract

Carbapenem-hydrolyzing class D β-lactamases (CHDLs) are enzymes of the utmost clinical importance due to their ability to produce resistance to carbapenems, the antibiotics of last resort for the treatment of various life-threatening infections. The vast majority of these enzymes have been identified in Acinetobacter spp., notably in Acinetobacter baumannii. The OXA-2 and OXA-10 enzymes predominantly occur in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and are currently classified as narrow-spectrum class D β-lactamases. Here we demonstrate that when OXA-2 and OXA-10 are expressed in Escherichia coli strain JM83, they produce a narrow-spectrum antibiotic resistance pattern. When the enzymes are expressed in A. baumannii ATCC 17978, however, they behave as extended-spectrum β-lactamases and confer resistance to carbapenem antibiotics. Kinetic studies of OXA-2 and OXA-10 with four carbapenems have demonstrated that their catalytic efficiencies with these antibiotics are in the same range as those of some recognized class D carbapenemases. These results are in disagreement with the classification of the OXA-2 and OXA-10 enzymes as narrow-spectrum β-lactamases, and they suggest that other class D enzymes that are currently regarded as noncarbapenemases may in fact be CHDLs.

FIG 1

Expression levels of OXA enzymes in A. baumannii. (Bottom) Representative immunoblot of the amounts of soluble OXA β-lactamases produced by A. baumannii ATCC 17978 from the plasmid pNT221. All lanes contain the soluble protein from equal numbers of cells, with the exception of lane OXA-48*, which contains protein from 25 times more cells. (Top) Relative amounts of enzymes produced, normalized to OXA-10 expression.