Transposon-mediated amikacin resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae

Abstract

A multiresistant Klebsiella pneumoniae strain isolated from neonates in Mendoza, Argentina, harbored a 48-kilobase-pair (kbp) plasmid, pMET1, with genetic determinants for resistance to amikacin and also ampicillin, kanamycin, streptomycin, and tobramycin. This plasmid was compared with pJHCMW1, a previously isolated 11-kbp plasmid carrying transposon Tn1331, which encodes resistance to amikacin, as well as ampicillin, kanamycin, streptomycin, and tobramycin, and which was originally present in a K. pneumoniae strain that caused an outbreak in a hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The comparison demonstrated that the replication regions of the two plasmids are unrelated. However, in pMET1 an 11-kbp transposition element, Tn1331.2, was identified; it was closely related to Tn1331, with the difference that a 3-kbp BamHI DNA fragment carrying the aminoglycoside resistance genes was duplicated in tandem.