Thirteen clinical isolates of multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii resistant to carbapenems (MRAB-C) with tigecycline nonsusceptibility were collected from individual patients in this study. None of the 13 isolates shared the same strain characteristics in molecular typing. All of them showed increased adeB transcription, as predicted. However, none of these tigecycline-nonsusceptible MRAB-C isolates were found to possess previously known adeRS mutations. Upregulation of adeB transcription may result from cross stimulation by other mechanisms.
Multidrug-resistantAcinetobacter baumannii resistant to carbapenems (MRAB-C) has been increasingly reported worldwide, raising serious concerns about the limited antimicrobial treatment options (3, 6). Tigecycline (TGC) was therefore recommended for treating MRAB-C infections (4, 7, 13). However, overexpression of the adeABC efflux system regulated by the adeRS two-component system has been reported to result in tigecycline nonsusceptibility of A. baumannii (5,11,12,17,22). We noted more frequent isolation of TGC-nonsusceptible MRAB-C in clinics in Taiwan after the general recommendation of TGC usage against MRAB-C in March 2008. In this study, we investigated clinical characteristics, therapeutic management, and outcomes for patients infected with TGC-nonsusceptible MRAB-C. The mechanism of TGC nonsusceptibility of these clinical isolates was also explored.A total of 17 clinical isolates of MRAB-C were collected at the Tri-Service General Hospital (TSGH) in 2008 and 2009 and subjected to further studies. They were categorized into 3 groups: 4 TGC-susceptible MRAB-C isolates (group I), 4 TGC-intermediate MRAB-C isolates (group II), and 9 TGCresistant MRAB-C isolates (group III). These strains were collected from different individuals who had no overlapping stays in the same intensive care unit (ICU) or the same ward. A. baumannii ATCC 15151 was used as a control. All the isolates were identified using the Vitek 2 system (bioMérieux, Marcy l'Etoile, France), and identifications were confirmed by sequencing of the intergenic spacer (ITS) region of the 16S-23S rRNA genes (2). An A. baumannii isolate was defined as MRAB-C according to a previously described standard (3, 8). The MIC was determined by using the Vitek 2 system and Etest (AB Biodisk, Solna, Sweden). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration-recommended TGC susceptibility breakpoints for Enterobacteriaceae (susceptible, Ϲ2 mg/ml; intermediate, 4 mg/ml; resistant, м8 mg/ml) were used as MIC interpretation criteria. Mueller-Hinton (M-H) agar plates with or without 64 mg/liter 1-(1-naphthylmethyl)-piperazine (NMP; Steinheim, Germany), an efflux pump inhibitor, were used to verify the efflux pump effect on TGC resistance. All isolates were repeatedly investigated for their adeB transcripts by using the ABI Prism 7700 sequence detection system (Applied Biosystems, Warrington, United Kingdom) on three separate occasions. A cutoff threshold (CT) value was used to represent adeB transcripts quantitatively. The ⌬CT for a...