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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, January 2005, p. 104-110, Vol. 49, No. 1
0066-4804/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AAC.49.1.104-110.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Clonal Relatedness and Conserved Integron Structures in Epidemiologically Unrelated Pseudomonas aeruginosa Strains Producing the VIM-1 Metallo-ß-Lactamase from Different Italian Hospitals

Maria Letizia Riccio,¹ Lucia Pallecchi,¹ Jean-Denis Docquier,^1, Stefania Cresti,¹ Maria Rosaria Catania,² Laura Pagani,³ Cristina Lagatolla,⁴ Giuseppe Cornaglia,⁵ Roberta Fontana,⁵ and Gian Maria Rossolini^1*

Dipartimento di Biologia Molecolare, Sezione di Microbiologia, Università di Siena, Siena,¹ Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale, Seconda Università di Napoli, Naples,² Dipartimento di Scienze Morfologiche Eidologiche e Cliniche, Sezione di Microbiologia, Università di Pavia, Pavia,³ Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Sezione di Microbiologia, Università di Trieste, Trieste,⁴ Dipartimento di Patologia, Sezione di Microbiologia, Università di Verona, Verona, Italy⁵

Received 9 April 2004/ Returned for modification 11 July 2004/ Accepted 19 September 2004

Three epidemiologically independent Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates, representative of the first VIM-1 metallo-ß-lactamase producers detected at three different hospitals in northern Italy, were investigated to determine their genomic relatedness and to compare the structures of the genetic supports for the VIM-1 determinants. The three isolates, all of serotype O11, appeared to be clonally related according to the results of genotyping by macrorestriction analysis of genomic DNA by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and random amplification of polymorphic DNA. Investigation of the genetic support for the bla_VIM-1 determinant revealed that it was carried on identical or almost identical integrons (named In70.2 and In70.3) located within a conserved genomic context. The integrons were structurally related to In70 and In110, two plasmid-borne bla_VIM-1-containing integrons from Achromobacter xylosoxidans and Pseudomonas putida isolates, respectively, from the same geographic area (northern Italy) and were found to be inserted close to the res site of a Tn5051-like transposon, different from any of those described previously, that was apparently carried on the bacterial chromosome. The present findings suggest that the three VIM-1-producing isolates are members of the same clonal complex which have been spreading in hospitals in northern Italy since the late 1990s and point to a common ancestry of their bla_VIM-1-containing integrons.

Present address: Centre d'Ingénierie des Protéines & Laboratoire d'Enzymologie, Université de Liège, Allée de la Chimie, B-4000 Liège, Belgium.

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