Purpose
The multidrug resistance Enterobacteriaceae cause many serious infections resulting in prolonged hospitalization, increased treatment charges and mortality rate. In this study, we characterized
bla
NDM-5
-positive multidrug resistance commensal
Escherichia coli
(CE) isolated from diarrheal patients in Kolkata, India.
Methods
Three CE strains were isolated from diarrheal stools, which were negative for different pathogroups of diarrheagenic
E. coli
(DEC). The presence of carbapenemases encoding genes and other antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) was detected using PCR. The genetic arrangement adjoining
bla
NDM-5
was investigated by plasmid genome sequencing. The genetic relatedness of the strains was determined by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) methods.
Results
In addition to colistin, the
bla
NDM-5
-positive CE strains showed resistance to most of the antibiotics. Higher MICs were detected for ciprofloxacin (>32 mg/L) and imipenem (8 mg/L). Molecular typing revealed that three CE strains belonged to two different STs (ST 101 and ST 648) but they were 95% similar in the PFGE analysis. Screening for ARGs revealed that CE strains harbored
Int-1, bla
TEM
,
bla
C
TX-M3
,
bla
OXA-1
,
bla
OXA-7
,
bla
OXA-9
,
tetA, strA, aadA1, aadB, sul2, floR, mph(A)
, and
aac(6´)-Ib-cr
. In conjugation experiment, transfer frequencies ranged from 2.5×10
−3
to 8.4x10
−5
. The
bla
NDM-5
gene was located on a 94-kb pNDM-TC-CE-89 type plasmid, which is highly similar to the IncFII plasmid harboring an IS26-IS30-
bla
NDM-5
-
ble
MBL
-
trpF-dsbd
-IS
91-dhps
structure.
Conclusion
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on carbapenem resistance involving the
bla
NDM-5
gene in CE from diarrheal patients. The circulation of
bla
NDM-5
gene in CE is worrisome, since it has the potential to transfer
bla
NDM-5
gene to other enteric pathogens.