Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Apr 28;9(5):951.
doi: 10.3390/microorganisms9050951.

First Report of blaNDM-1 Bearing IncX3 Plasmid in Clinically Isolated ST11 Klebsiella pneumoniae from Pakistan

Hazrat Bilal  1 , Gaojian Zhang  1 , Tayyab Rehman  2 , Jianxion Han  1 , Sabir Khan  1 , Muhammad Shafiq  3 , Xuegang Yang  1 , Zhongkang Yan  1 , Xingyuan Yang  1
Affiliations

First Report of blaNDM-1 Bearing IncX3 Plasmid in Clinically Isolated ST11 Klebsiella pneumoniae from Pakistan

Hazrat Bilal et al. Microorganisms. .

Abstract

The New Delhi Metallo-β-lactamase (NDM) is among the most threatening forms of carbapenemases produced by K. pneumoniae, well-known to cause severe worldwide infections. The molecular epidemiology of blaNDM-1-harboring K. pneumoniae is not well elucidated in Pakistan. Herein, we aim to determine the antibiotics-resistance profile, genes type, molecular type, and plasmid analysis of 125 clinically isolated K. pneumoniae strains from urine samples during July 2018 to January 2019 in Pakistan. A total of 34 (27.2%) K. pneumoniae isolates were carbapenemases producers, and 23 (18.4%) harbored the blaNDM-1 gene. The other carbapenemases encoding genes, i.e., blaIMP-1 (7.2%), blaVIM-1 (3.2%), and blaOXA-48 (2.4%) were also detected. The Multi Locus Sequence Typing (MLST) results revealed that all blaNDM-1-harboring isolates were ST11. The other sequence types detected were ST1, ST37, and ST105. The cluster analysis of Xbal Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) revealed variation amongst the clusters of the identical sequence type isolates. The blaNDM-1 gene in all of the isolates was located on a 45-kb IncX3 plasmid, successfully transconjugated. For the first time, blaNDM-1-bearing IncX3 plasmids were identified from Pakistan, and this might be a new primary vehicle for disseminating blaNDM-1 in Enterobacteriaceae as it has a high rate of transferability.

Keywords: IncX3 plasmid; K. pneumoniae; New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase; carbapenem resistance; extended-spectrum-β-lactamases.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The percentage of antibiotic resistance profile of nine antibiotics against 125 K. pneumoniae isolates.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Minimum spinning tree of carbapenemases-producing K. pneumoniae isolates based on the MLST alleles and sequence type (ST). The nodes represent the STs, sizes of nodes characterize the number of isolates, and length of branches shows the number of different alleles out of seven MLST alleles. Nodes are labeled with the corresponding sequence type.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Xbal PFGE result of carbapenemases-producing K. pneumoniae. The cluster analysis and dendrogram is constructed by BioNumerics V 8.0. ST is short for sequence type.
Figure 4
Figure 4
S1 PFGE and Southern blot results. PKPO4, PKP31, PKP90, PKP101, and PKP64 are the isolates, and H9812 is the molecular size marker (1135 to 20.5 kb) digested with Xbal enzymes. Southern hybridization revealed the blaNDM-1 probed on the 45-kb IncX3 plasmid. Black arrows show blaNDM-1-bearing plasmids on the gel, while red arrows represent blaNDM-1-harboring plasmids on the nylon membrane.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Dortet L., Poirel L., Nordmann P. Worldwide dissemination of the NDM-type carbapenemases in Gram-negative bacteria. Biomed. Res. Int. 2014;2014:249856. doi: 10.1155/2014/249856. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yong D., Toleman M.A., Giske C.G., Cho H.S., Sundman K., Lee K., Walsh T.R. Characterization of a new metallo-beta-lactamase gene, bla(NDM-1), and a novel erythromycin esterase gene carried on a unique genetic structure in Klebsiella pneumoniae sequence type 14 from India. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 2009;53:5046–5054. doi: 10.1128/AAC.00774-09. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mitra S.D., Sebastian S.C., Rekha I., Irshad P., Mudigonda A., Suresh J., Choudhary S., Tewari R., Ganaie F., Shome B.R. Molecular detection of the New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase clinical variant with double mutation- V88L and M154L in Escherichia coli isolates from South India. Gene Rep. 2020;21:100880. doi: 10.1016/j.genrep.2020.100880. - DOI
    1. Khan A.U., Maryam L., Zarrilli R. Structure, Genetics and Worldwide Spread of New Delhi Metallo-β-lactamase (NDM): A threat to public health. BMC Microbiol. 2017;17:101. doi: 10.1186/s12866-017-1012-8. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bogaerts P., Verroken A., Jans B., Denis O., Glupczynski Y. Global spread of New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase 1. Lancet Infect. Dis. 2010;10:831–832. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(10)70278-4. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources