Project description:The study aimed to characterize plasmids mediating carbepenem resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae in Pretoria, South Africa. We analysed 56 K. pneumoniae isolates collected from academic hospital around Pretoria. Based on phenotypic and molecular results of these isolates, 6 representative isolates were chosen for further analysis using long reads sequencing platform. We observed multidrug resistant phenotype in all these isolates, including resistance to aminoglycosides, tetracycline, phenicol, fosfomycin, floroquinolones, and beta-lactams antibiotics. The blaOXA-48/181 and blaNDM-1/7 were manily the plasmid-mediated carbapenemases responsible for carbapenem resistance in the K. pneumoniae isolates in these academic hospitals. These carbapenemase genes were mainly associated with plasmid replicon groups IncF, IncL/M, IncA/C, and IncX3. This study showed plasmid-mediated carbapenemase spread of blaOXA and blaNDM genes mediated by conjugative plasmids in Pretoria hospitals.
Project description:Klebsiella pneumoniae poses a significant global health threat primarily attributable to its pronounced resistance. Here, we report an in vitro acquired resistance analyses of K. pneumoniae to the combination of amikacin and polymyxin B. We found some differentially expressed genes associated with the resistome of K. pneumoniae. The main differences were found in the genes aphA, asmA, phoP, and in the arn operon. Once these genes are related to modification in lipopolysaccharides, aminoglycosides and in the membrane structure, the mechanisms associated with them can justify the resistance acquisition to amikacin and polymyxin b.
Project description:K. pneumoniae, a Gram-negative bacterium, is normally associated with pneumonia in patients with weakened immune systems. However, it is also a prevalent nosocomial infectious agent that can be found in infected surgical sites and combat wounds. Many of these clinical strains display multi-drug resistance. We have worked with a clinical strain of K. pneumoniae that was initially isolated from a wound of an injured soldier. This strain demonstrated resistance to many commonly used antibiotics, but sensitivity to carbapenems. This isolate was capable of forming biofilms in vitro, contributing to its increased antibiotic resistance and impaired clearance. We were interested in determining how sublethal concentrations of carbapenem treatment specifically affect K. pneumoniae biofilms both in morphology and genomic expression. Scanning electron microscopy showed striking morphological differences between untreated and treated biofilms, including rounding, blebbing, and dimpling of treated cells. Comparative transcriptome analysis using RNA sequencing technology identified a large number of open reading frames (ORFs) differentially regulated in response to carbapenem treatment at 2 and 24 hours. ORFs upregulated with carbapenem treatment included genes involved in resistance, antiporters, and autoinducers. ORFs downregulated included metal transporters, membrane biosynthesis proteins, and motility proteins. Quantitative real time PCR validated the general trend of some of these differentially regulated ORFs. Treating K. pneumoniae biofilms with sublethal concentrations of carbapenems induced a wide-range of phenotypic and gene expression changes. This study reveals some of the mechanisms underlying how sublethal amounts of carbapenems could affect the overall fitness and pathogenic potential of K. pneumoniae biofilm cells.
Project description:Carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae classified as multilocus sequence type 258 (ST258)are a problem in healthcare settings in many countries globally. ST258 isolates are resistant tomultiple classes of antibiotics and can cause life-threatening infections, such as pneumonia andsepsis, in susceptible individuals. Treatment strategies for such infections are limited. Hence,understanding the response of K. pneumoniae to host factors in the presence of antibiotics couldreveal mechanisms employed by the pathogen to evade killing in the susceptible host, as well asinform treatment of infections. Here, we investigated the ability of subinhibitory concentrationsof antibiotics to alter K. pneumoniae capsule polysaccharide (CPS) production and survival innormal human serum. Several antibiotics tested enhanced ST258 survival in normal humanserum. Unexpectedly, subinhibitory concentrations of mupirocin increased survival in 7 of 10clinical isolates tested, and caused up-regulated expression of CPS biosynthesis genes and CPSproduction in a selected ST258 clinical isolate (34446) compared with untreated controls.Additionally, mupirocin treatment caused a reduction in the deposition of the serum complementproteins C3b and C5b-9 on the surface of ST258. Transcriptome analyses with isolate 34446indicated that genes implicated in serum resistance, such as aroE, csrD, pyrB, pyrC and traT,were up-regulated following mupirocin treatment. In conclusion, mupirocin causes changes inthe K. pneumoniae transcriptome that likely contribute to the observed decrease in serumsusceptibility via a multifactorial process. Whether these responses are triggered by othercomponents of host defense or therapeutics that were not tested here merits further investigation.
Project description:Bacteria can circumvent the effect of antibiotics by transitioning to a poorly understood physiological state that does not involve conventional genetic elements of resistance. Here we examine antibiotic susceptibility with a Class A β-lactamase+ invasive strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae that was isolated from a lethal outbreak within laboratory colonies of Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus monkeys. Bacterial responses to the ribosomal synthesis inhibitors streptomycin and doxycycline resulted in distinct proteomic adjustments that facilitated decreased susceptibility to each antibiotic.
Project description:Bacteria can circumvent the effect of antibiotics by transitioning to a poorly understood physiological state that does not involve conventional genetic elements of resistance. Here we examine antibiotic susceptibility with a Class A β-lactamase+ invasive strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae that was isolated from a lethal outbreak within laboratory colonies of Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus monkeys. Bacterial responses to the ribosomal synthesis inhibitors streptomycin and doxycycline resulted in distinct proteomic adjustments that facilitated decreased susceptibility to each antibiotic. Drug-specific changes to proteomes included proteins for receptor-mediated membrane transport and sugar utilization, central metabolism, and capsule production, while mechanisms common to both antibiotics included elevated scavenging of reactive oxygen species and turnover of misfolded proteins. Resistance to combined antibiotics presented integrated adjustments to protein levels as well as unique drug-specific proteomic features. Our results demonstrate that dampening of Klebsiella pneumoniae susceptibility involves global remodeling of the bacterial proteome to counter the effects of antibiotics and stabilize growth.
Project description:Klebsiella pneumoniae is a leading cause of global deaths due to antibiotic resistance. Of particular concern, is the rapid expansion within K. pneumoniae lineages of resistance to beta-lactams, the most prescribed class of antibiotics. Additionally, the environmental factors that influence pathogen physiology and, subsequently, antibiotic resistance remain poorly understood. Here we demonstrate that physiologically-relevant drops in culture medium pH result in increased antibiotic resistance particularly towards beta-lactams that inhibit cell division. We identified two genes that contribute to acid-dependent beta-lactam resistance, the class A PBP, PBP1b, and the paralogous class B PBP, PBP3PARA. Loss of either gene increases K. pneumoniae susceptibility to beta-lactams at low pH. Our data suggests that functional redundancy among cell wall synthesis enzymes allows for specialization and ensures that cell wall synthesis occurs robustly across a range of pH conditions.
Project description:The inappropriate use of antibiotics is a severe public health problem worldwide, contributing to the emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria. To explore the possible impacts of the inappropriate use of antibiotics on the immune system, we use Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) infection as an example and show that imipenem increases the mortality of mice infected by MDR K. pneumoniae. Further studies demonstrate that imipenem enhances the secretion of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) with significantly elevated presentation of GroEL, which promotes the phagocytosis of OMVs by macrophages that depends on the interaction between GroEL and its receptor LOX-1. OMVs cause the pyroptosis of macrophages and the release of proinflammatory cytokines, which contribute to exacerbated inflammatory responses. We propose that the inappropriate use of antibiotics in the cases of infection by MDR bacteria such as K. pneumoniae might cause damaging inflammatory responses, which underlines the pernicious effects of inappropriate use of antibiotic.
Project description:Liao2011 - Genome-scale metabolic
reconstruction of Klebsiella pneumoniae (iYL1228)
This model is described in the article:
An experimentally validated
genome-scale metabolic reconstruction of Klebsiella pneumoniae
MGH 78578, iYL1228.
Liao YC, Huang TW, Chen FC,
Charusanti P, Hong JS, Chang HY, Tsai SF, Palsson BO, Hsiung
CA.
J. Bacteriol. 2011 Apr; 193(7):
1710-1717
Abstract:
Klebsiella pneumoniae is a Gram-negative bacterium of the
family Enterobacteriaceae that possesses diverse metabolic
capabilities: many strains are leading causes of
hospital-acquired infections that are often refractory to
multiple antibiotics, yet other strains are metabolically
engineered and used for production of commercially valuable
chemicals. To study its metabolism, we constructed a
genome-scale metabolic model (iYL1228) for strain MGH 78578,
experimentally determined its biomass composition,
experimentally determined its ability to grow on a broad range
of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur sources, and
assessed the ability of the model to accurately simulate growth
versus no growth on these substrates. The model contains 1,228
genes encoding 1,188 enzymes that catalyze 1,970 reactions and
accurately simulates growth on 84% of the substrates tested.
Furthermore, quantitative comparison of growth rates between
the model and experimental data for nine of the substrates also
showed good agreement. The genome-scale metabolic
reconstruction for K. pneumoniae presented here thus provides
an experimentally validated in silico platform for further
studies of this important industrial and biomedical
organism.
This model is hosted on
BioModels Database
and identified by:
MODEL1507180054.
To cite BioModels Database, please use:
BioModels Database:
An enhanced, curated and annotated resource for published
quantitative kinetic models.
To the extent possible under law, all copyright and related or
neighbouring rights to this encoded model have been dedicated to
the public domain worldwide. Please refer to
CC0
Public Domain Dedication for more information.