Characterization of resistance genes and replicon typing in Carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae strains

In our study, K. pneumoniae strains (non-susceptible to carbapenem) (n = 60) were obtained from various clinical samples from Rize State Hospital between 2015 and 2017 and it is aimed to identify antibiotic resistance genes and replicon typing.

Antibiotic susceptibility tests of the strains were performed with Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion test and the Vitek-2 automated system (BioMerieux, France). Antibiotic resistance genes and replicon typing was characterized by PCR method.

It was determined that K. pneumaniae isolates were mostly isolated from the samples of the intensive care unit. All of the K. pneumoniae strains examined in this study were found to be ampicillin/sulbactam and ertapenem resistant but colistin susceptible. Amoxacillin/clavulonic acid resistance was detected at 98.14% of strains. The bla_OXA-48 gene was mostly detected in isolates. The most common type of plasmid was I1 and 3 different plasmid types were found in five different strains together.

This study also shows that the distribution of NDM-1 and OXA-48 carbapenemases has increased since the first co-display in Türkiye and that IncHI1 is the first record in our country. This study provides an overview of the major plasmid families occurring in multiple antibiotic-resistant strains of K. pneumoniae. To our knowledge, this study represents the first report of IncHI1 record in Türkiye.