Evolution of an integron carrying blaVIM-2 in Eastern Europe: report from the SENTRY Antimicrobial Surveillance Program

J Antimicrob Chemother. 2003 Jul;52(1):116-9. doi: 10.1093/jac/dkg299. Epub 2003 Jun 12.

Abstract

As part of the SENTRY Antimicrobial Surveillance Program, an imipenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain (81-11963A) was isolated from the blood culture of a female neonate institutionalized at the local children's hospital in Warsaw, Poland. Cloning of an imipenem resistance determinant revealed it to be a VIM-2 metallo-beta-lactamase, but sequence analysis of DNA adjacent to blaVIM-2 revealed it to have a unique gene context. Downstream of the blaVIM-2 gene resides an aacA4 gene encoding the AAC(6')-Ib aminoglycoside acetyltransferase. The integron containing blaVIM-2 shows high similarity to that reported from In58 in France but was novel in that it possessed a gene cassette with a 59 truncated base element only 19 base pairs (bp) long, consisting of a conserved core site and an inverse core site separated by only 5 bp. This appears to be the first report of a metallo-beta-lactamase gene arising from a pathogenic strain in Eastern Europe.

Publication types

  • Case Reports
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Base Sequence
  • Cloning, Molecular
  • Drug Resistance, Bacterial
  • Europe, Eastern / epidemiology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Imipenem / pharmacology*
  • Infant, Newborn
  • Integrons / genetics*
  • Microbial Sensitivity Tests
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Poland
  • Population Surveillance
  • Pseudomonas aeruginosa / drug effects*
  • Pseudomonas aeruginosa / genetics*
  • Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Thienamycins / pharmacology*
  • beta-Lactamases / genetics*

Substances

  • Thienamycins
  • Imipenem
  • beta-lactamase bla(vim-2)
  • beta-Lactamases