Current trends of human infections and antibiotic resistance of the genus Shewanella

Abstract

Shewanella spp. are commonly known as environmental bacteria and are most frequently isolated from aquatic areas. Currently, diseases syndromes and multidrug resistance have increasingly been reported in the genus Shewanella. Some species are associated with various infections, such as skin and soft tissue infections, as well as bacteremia. Generally, these bacteria are opportunistic and mostly affect people with an impaired immune system. This genus is also a probable vehicle and progenitor of antibiotic resistance genes. In fact, several resistance genes and mobile genetic elements have been identified in some resistant species isolated from environmental or clinical settings. These genes confer resistance to different antibiotic classes, including those used in therapies such as β-lactams and quinolones, and are generally located on the chromosome. Recently, a multidrug-resistant (MDR) plasmid harboring several drug resistance genes associated with transposons and integrons has been identified in Shewanella xiamenensis. These antibiotic resistance genes can circulate in the environment and contribute to the emergence of antibiotic resistance. This review describes different aspects of Shewanella, focusing on the infections caused by this genus, as well as their role in the propagation of antibiotic resistance via mobile genetic elements.

Genomic and phylogenetic characterization of Shewanella xiamenensis isolated from giant grouper (Epinephelus lanceolatus) in Taiwan

“…Ambler Class D β‐lactamase OXA‐416 has been found in hospital wastewater isolated from carbapenem‐resistant S. xiamenensis (Yousfi, Touati, et al, ). The variants of bla OXA detected in S. xiamenensis also included bla OXA‐181 , bla OXA‐48b , bla OXA‐204 , bla OXA‐514 , bla OXA‐252 and bla OXA‐199 (Yousfi, Bekal, et al, ). Our data further suggest that aquaculture‐associated S. xiamenensis could be a potential source of class D β‐lactamase gene (Poirel, Potron, & Nordmann, ).…”

Shewanella khirikhana sp. nov. – a shrimp pathogen isolated from a cultivation pond exhibiting early mortality syndrome

“…In China, S. marisflavi caused high mortality in sea cucumbers (Li et al , ), and S. aquimarina was associated with a lesion syndrome of sea urchin (Wang et al , ). In shrimp, Shewanella species, and especially S. putrefaciens and S. baltica , were associated with spoilage of P. vannamei stored at low temperature (Qian et al , ; Qian et al , ; Zhu et al , ), and Shewanella species were also found to be a normal part of the bacterial flora in the P. vannamei gut (Suo et al , ).…”

“…septicaemia, cellulitis, arthritis, otitis and pneumonia). Both are often recovered from mixed microbial flora of patients (Satomi, 2013;Yousfi et al, 2017). They have also been reported to be opportunistic pathogens in aquatic species.…”

“…Information on virulence factors in the genus Shewanella is still limited. In humans, a higher virulence for S. algae than for S. putrefaciens was found to be associated with the production of beta-haemolysin and other extracellular enzymes (Khashe and Michael Janda, 1998;Yousfi et al, 2017). Genomic analysis of S. algae MARs 14 (a multidrug-resistant pneumonia agent) revealed putative virulence factors, including haemolysin and flagellum system genes along with drug-resistance genes and multidrug efflux pump genes (Cimmino et al, 2016).…”

“…In addition, the TH2012 T genome contains a putative prophage ( Fig. 5) (Wechprasit et al, 2019) and some virulence genes found in some Shewanella isolates (Pa zdzior, 2016; Yousfi et al, 2017) such as putative haemolysins, chitinases and proteases (Wechprasit et al, 2019).…”