Abstract
Klebsiella pneumoniae complex is an increasingly important bacterial pathogen that is capable of causing severe organs and life-threatening disease. This study aimed to investigate the multidrug resistance, phylogroups, molecular characterization, and hypervirulence-associated determinants of the complex, which were isolated from clinical diseased dogs and cats. A total of 35 K. pneumoniae complex (2.3%; 95% confidence interval, 1.6–3.2) isolates were identified from 1,500 samples, all of which were collected randomly from veterinary hospitals in the 12 regions across China. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing showed that isolates were extremely resistant to amoxicillin–clavulanate (82.9%) and trimethoprim–sulfamethoxazole (77.1%). The rate of multidrug-resistant reached an astonishing 82.9% and found a carbapenemase-producing strain carrying IncX3-blaNDM−5 derived a cat from Zhejiang. The prevalence rates of extended-spectrum β-lactamase gene blaCTX−M and plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance gene aac(6')Ib-cr were 51.4% and 45.7%, respectively. The resistance gene aph(3')-Ia of isolates from cats was more significantly (p < 0.05) prevalent than that from dogs. Likewise, K. pneumoniae complex harbored hypervirulence-associated genes ybt (11.4%), iuc (5.7%), and iroB (2.9%). Three (8.6%) of the 35 isolates were determined as hypermucoviscous by the string test. Lipopolysaccharide serotype O1v2 had the highest percentage of 25.7%, but capsular serotypes presented diversity distribution among the isolates. The core–genome phylogenetic tree demonstrated most of the isolates belonged to the KpI phylogroup (91.4%). Multilocus sequence typing analysis identified 25 different STs; ST15 and ST37 were the most abundant accounting for isolates, followed by ST307, ST656, ST1408, and ST4566. In addition, the prevalence of IncFIB-type plasmid for cat isolates was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than that for dogs. Sequences of IncX3 in blaNDM−5-positive strain contained regions showing >99% nucleotide sequence identity to the reference plasmid pNDM-MGR194 from the human.
Highlights
Klebsiella species, gram-negative opportunistic pathogens, commonly caused acquired antimicrobial-resistant infections in hospitals or communities
35 K. pneumoniae complex [35 of 1,500; 2.3%; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.6–3.2] isolates were identified from 1,500 samples, which collected randomly from veterinary hospitals in the 12 regions across China (Figure 1), including 19 from dogs [19 of 835 (2.3%); 95% CI, 1.4–3.5] and 16 from cats [16 of 665 (2.4%); 95% CI, 1.4–3.9]; no significant difference among animals (p = 0.868) (Table 1)
Among samples from cats, most K. pneumoniae complex was isolated from urine [8 of 325 (2.5%); 95% CI, 1.1–4.8]
Summary
Klebsiella species, gram-negative opportunistic pathogens, commonly caused acquired antimicrobial-resistant infections in hospitals or communities. Most of the new AMR genes discovered in the past two decades were first detected and spread widely among gram-negative bacterial pathogens, including the extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) forms of blaCTX−M and blaSHV, the carbapenemases blaKPC and blaNDM, and most recently mcr-1, the first plasmid-borne gene associated with colistin resistance [5]. The emergence of these AMR genes from K. pneumoniae increases the risk of failure for human antibacterial treatment and affects that for companion animals. If the bacteria were transmitted from the pets to their owners, the antimicrobial bacteria from companion animals may have an important impact on human public health [6]
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