The Transmission and Antibiotic Resistance Variation in a Multiple Drug Resistance Clade of Vibrio cholerae Circulating in Multiple Countries in Asia

PLoS One. 2016 Mar 1;11(3):e0149742. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149742. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Vibrio cholerae has caused massive outbreaks and even trans-continental epidemics. In 2008 and 2010, at least 3 remarkable cholera outbreaks occurred in Hainan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces of China. To address the possible transmissions and the relationships to the 7th pandemic strains of those 3 outbreaks, we sequenced the whole genomes of the outbreak isolates and compared with the global isolates from the 7th pandemic. The three outbreaks in this study were caused by a cluster of V. cholerae in clade 3.B which is parallel to the clade 3.C that was transmitted from Nepal to Haiti and caused an outbreak in 2010. Pan-genome analysis provided additional evolution information on the mobile element and acquired multiple antibiotic resistance genes. We suggested that clade 3.B should be monitored because the multiple antibiotic resistant characteristics of this clade and the 'amplifier' function of China in the global transmission of current Cholera pandemic. We also show that dedicated whole genome sequencing analysis provided more information than the previous techniques and should be applied in the disease surveillance networks.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Anti-Bacterial Agents / pharmacology
  • Asia / epidemiology
  • Cholera / epidemiology
  • Cholera / microbiology
  • Cholera / transmission*
  • Disease Outbreaks
  • Drug Resistance, Microbial / drug effects
  • Drug Resistance, Microbial / genetics*
  • Drug Resistance, Multiple / drug effects
  • Drug Resistance, Multiple / genetics*
  • Epidemics
  • Genetic Variation
  • Genome, Bacterial / genetics
  • Phylogeny
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA
  • Vibrio cholerae / classification
  • Vibrio cholerae / genetics*
  • Vibrio cholerae / physiology

Substances

  • Anti-Bacterial Agents

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from the Chinese National Science and Technology Major Project on Infectious Disease Control and Prevention (2012ZX10004-215 and 2008ZX10004-008), and the National Basic Research Priorities Program of China (2015CB554201). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.