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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, January 2004, p. 329-332, Vol. 48, No. 1
0066-4804/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AAC.48.1.329-332.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
blaVIM-7, an Evolutionarily Distinct Metallo-ß-Lactamase Gene in a Pseudomonas aeruginosa Isolate from the United States
Mark A. Toleman,1* Kenneth Rolston,2 Ronald N. Jones,3,4 and Timothy R. Walsh1
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TD, United Kingdom,1
Anderson Medical Center, Houston, Texas,2
The JONES Group/JMI Laboratories, North Liberty, Iowa,3
Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts4
Received 20 March 2003/
Returned for modification 28 April 2003/
Accepted 18 August 2003

ABSTRACT
As part of the CANCER Antimicrobial Surveillance Program in
North America, a
Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolate, strain 07-406,
was shown to possess a metallo-ß-lactamase, designated
VIM-7.
blaVIM-7 is located on a 24-kb plasmid which can be readily
transferred into
Enterobacteriaceae and other pseudomonads.
This is the first report of a mobile metallo-ß-lactamase
gene,
blaVIM-7, being detected within the United States.

INTRODUCTION
In 1999, a novel family of class B metallo-ß-lactamases,
the VIM family (VIM-1 to VIM-6 enzymes) of
Pseudomonas aeruginosa and
Acinetobacter spp. in Europe, was initially described (
4,
5,
10) The VIM family was subsequently found in strains of
Serratia marcescens and
Acinetobacter spp. in Korea (VIM-2) (
15) and
P. aeruginosa (VIM-3),
Pseudomonas putida, and
Pseudomonas stutzeri spp. (VIM-2) in Taiwan (
12,
14,
15). More recently, VIM variants
have been found in
Escherichia coli (VIM-1) (
6) and
P. aeruginosa (VIM-4; EMBL accession no.
AY135661 and
AF531419) (
8) in Greece,
in
Klebsiella pneumoniae (VIM-5; EMBL accession no.
AY144612)
in Turkey, and in
P. putida (VIM-6; EMBL accession no.
AY165025)
in Singapore. The
blaVIM gene, like the
blaIMP gene, is carried
on mobile gene cassettes inserted into class 1 integrons and
located chromosomally or on resident plasmids (
3). The class
1 integrons are the most common mechanisms by which bacteria
are able to move resistant gene cassettes from one bacterium
to another. The process involves recombination between 59-bp
elements on the gene cassette and
attI1 sites on the integron
(
2).
P. aeruginosa, isolate 07-406, was cultured from a 58-year-old female with a history of autoimmune hepatitis that required a liver transplant in 1988. In May 2001, she was diagnosed with left-breast carcinoma. Six days after admission of the patient, a diffuse pneumonitis was noted, and an invasive pulmonary sample was taken by bronchoscopy that revealed P. aeruginosa pneumonia. The organism was resistant to all tested antimicrobials except polymyxin B (MIC,
2 µg/ml) by local tests. P. aeruginosa isolate 07-406 gave a positive result with the metallo-ß-lactamase Etest strip, the imipenem MIC being reduced from 256 to 4 µg/ml in the presence of EDTA (11).
The genomic library was created by partial Sau3A restriction, cloned into pK18, and expressed in E. coli strain DH5
[supE44
lacU169 (
80lacZ
M15) hsdR17 recA1 endA1 gyrA96 thi-1 relA1] as previously described (9). Recombinants were screened on agar containing ampicillin plus the serine ß-lactamase inhibitor BRL42715 (GlaxoSmithKline), ensuring that any resistance detected was not mediated by a serine-type ß-lactamase (1). Twelve colonies harboring identical inserts were isolated, and one colony demonstrating imipenemase activity (extinction coefficient, -7,000) inhibited by EDTA was chosen randomly for further study. E. coli DH5
carrying pMATVIM-7 conferred resistance to nearly all ß-lactams except for aztreonam and the carbapenems; P. aeruginosa 07-406 was resistant to all ß-lactams (Table 1). blaVIM-7 is found on a 24-kb plasmid which can be readily transferred by electroporation into Enterobacteriaceae and other pseudomonads (data not shown).
The clone harbored the recombinant plasmid pMATVIM-7, containing
a 1,540-bp insert that was sequenced on both strands. Primer
sequences used for both sequencing the insert pMATVIM-7 and
back probing are shown in Table
2. Sequence analysis of the
pMATVIM-7 insert revealed the presence of a 795-bp open reading
frame showing high homology with a number of previously cloned
metallo-ß-lactamases (Fig.
1). The phylogenetic tree
(Fig.
2), which is based on a CLUSTAL W multiple alignment of
the putative amino acid sequence of the ß-lactamase
from
P. aeruginosa strain 07-406 with other metallo-ß-lactamases,
demonstrates that it clusters more closely to the VIM family
than the IMP family of metallo-ß-lactamases. VIM-7
has 77% amino acid identity to VIM-1, whereas VIM-1 to VIM-6
have 89 to 99% identity (
4,
7,
13). These amino acid variations
among VIM-7 and the other VIM-type enzymes cluster in the leader
sequence but are also found throughout the mature protein. The
amino acid changes within the mature protein are often changes
involving functionally different residues, namely, Q48K, S61K,
D64G, S192R, Y195F, N216D, E225K, and H219R. The most likely
site for cleavage occurs between amino acid positions 26 and
27 (YSA-QP), which would leave a mature peptide of 25,392 Da
with a pI of 5.71. This pI is in close agreement with the experimental
pI of 6.6 (data not shown).
View this table:
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TABLE 2. Primers used to sequence pMATVIM-7 and to back probe to the P. aeruginosa 07-406 chromosome to verify origins of clones
|
Analysis of the DNA sequence (with the Lasergene DNASTAR software
package) of the pMATVIM-7 insert (Fig.
1) indicates that
blaVIM-7 is preceded by a ribosome binding site (AGGAG) 6 bp upstream
of the start codon. The presence of a conserved core site 13
bp upstream of the ribosome binding site, together with an inverse
core site 7 bp after the stop codon and a 59-bp element, demonstrates
that
blaVIM-7 is harbored on a gene cassette. Additionally,
an
attI1 site identified immediately upstream of the gene cassette
containing the promoter of the
intI gene suggests that
blaVIM-7,
like other metallo-ß-lactamases, is harbored on an
integron (Fig.
3).
The gene encoding the enzyme described in this paper,
blaVIM-7,
like the
blaVIM-1 and
blaVIM-3 genes, is harbored on a gene
cassette which gives it the potential to move readily from one
genome to another (Fig.
3). The presence of an
attI1 site upstream
of
blaVIM-7 also strongly suggests that the
blaVIM-7 cassette
is part of an integron, which characteristically consists of
an integrase gene followed by a recombination site (
attI1 site).
The
blaVIM-7 genetic locus does differ in that no additional
antimicrobial resistance genes were found directly downstream
of
blaVIM-7. The 600 bp of DNA downstream of
blaVIM-7 in the
recombinant plasmid pMATVIM-7 displays no homology with any
antimicrobial resistance genes or the 3' conserved sequence
(CS) found in most class 1 integrons. The 3' CS is a section
of DNA conserved among many class 1 integrons, consisting of
the remnants of a quaternary ammonium compound resistance gene,
qacE
1, fused to a sulfonamide resistance gene,
su1. It is possible
that this section is present further downstream of the
blaVIM-7 gene that is not represented in the clone pMATVIM-7. However,
the 3' CS is not found in all class 1 integrons (e.g., Tn
402)
and is not required for mobility.
VIM-7, unlike the other enzymes of the VIM group, is markedly divergent (Fig. 2). VIM-7 shows 77% identity with VIM-1, whereas the other enzymes vary from each other by less than 11%. Many of the changes unique to VIM-7 were changes in amino acids possessing different functions and may well alter the biochemical properties of the enzyme. However, though divergent from other VIM-like proteins, VIM-7 shares even less homology with other metallo-ß-lactamases and therefore may be considered part of the VIM family. These data and the genetic context of the blaVIM-7 gene indicate that VIM-7 is only distantly related to the other VIM-like metallo-ß-lactamases. It is therefore unlikely that VIM-7 has arrived on the North American continent via immediate dissemination from Europe or East Asia, where the other VIM enzymes have been reported. It is probable that VIM-7 has arisen independently within the United States, possibly by the therapeutic use of broad-spectrum ß-lactams.
This is the first report of a mobile metallo-ß-lactamase, VIM-7, being found in the bacterial population of the United States. blaVIM-7 has been shown to be highly mobile and can be expressed in Enterobacteriaceae as well as Pseudomonas spp. Given that these enzymes can hydrolyze all known classes of therapeutic ß-lactams and that there is no clinically available metallo-ß-lactamase inhibitor, mobile metallo-ß-lactamases will pose a serious threat to broad-spectrum ß-lactam therapies within the United States.

Nucleotide sequence accession number.
The nucleotide sequence reported here has been registered with
the EMBL database under accession no.
AJ536835.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TD, United Kingdom. Phone: 44 117 9287522. Fax 44 117 9287896. E-mail:
Mark.Toleman{at}bristol.ac.uk.


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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, January 2004, p. 329-332, Vol. 48, No. 1
0066-4804/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AAC.48.1.329-332.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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