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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, November 2004, p. 4130-4135, Vol. 48, No. 11
0066-4804/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AAC.48.11.4130-4135.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Department of Laboratory Medicine,1 Research Institute of Bacterial Resistance,2 Brain Korea 21 Project for Medical Sciences, Yonsei University College of Medicine,3 National Institute of Health, Seoul, Korea4
Received 22 December 2003/ Returned for modification 29 March 2004/ Accepted 14 July 2004
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Antimicrobial therapy is generally not required for the treatment of gastrointestinal infections caused by nontyphoidal Salmonella strains. However, effective antimicrobial therapy is required for typhoid fever to reduce morbidity and mortality (18). Historically, the drugs of choice were chloramphenicol, ampicillin, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (co-trimoxazole). However, antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella serovar Typhi isolates emerged in the 1970s in Latin America (21) and Asia (3). A large number of Salmonella serovar Typhi strains have been isolated in Korea, but no resistant strain was documented until 1992, when a chloramphenicol-, ampicillin-, and co-trimoxazole-resistant strain was isolated from a patient who returned from a Southeast Asian country (K. Lee, D. Yong, J. H. Yum, Y. S. Lim, Y. Chong, and B.-K. Lee, Abstr. 43rd Intersci. Conf. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother., abstr. C2-865, 2003). We isolated two additional multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains in 1995, and subsequently, Shin et al. (27) reported a chloramphenicol resistance rate of 15% among isolates in Korea in 1997.
MDR Salmonella serovar Typhi isolates commonly harbor a plasmid of incompatibility group HI1. A 365-bp region of the RepHI1A region was detected in MDR strains of Salmonella serovar Typhi isolated in India (26). oriT is located within the Tra1 region of the plasmid and contains the nic site, which is one of many genes required for conjugative transfer of IncHI1 plasmid (12). The emergence of MDR Salmonella serovar Typhi in Korea was possibly due to the acquisition of the resistance by endemic strains from other resistant gram-negative bacilli or to the spread of resistant strains from other countries to which there had been recent increases in international travel. To verify these assumptions, comparisons of the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of both our susceptible and our resistant isolates are required.
The aims of this study were to analyze retrospectively the trends in the isolation and susceptibilities of Salmonella serovar Typhi strains from stool specimens at a Korean hospital and to determine the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of recent isolates of chloramphenicol-resistant Salmonella serovar Typhi strains, including the first three strains isolated.
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Antimicrobial susceptibilities of recent isolates. Strains isolated from 1992 to 1998 were used for the characterization of chloramphenicol-resistant Salmonella serovar Typhi: three strains were isolated at two hospitals affiliated with a medical college in Seoul, and nine strains were isolated by NIHK. Chloramphenicol-susceptible isolates (9 and 13 strains isolated in 1989 and 1998, respectively) were used for comparison. Antimicrobial susceptibility was tested by the agar dilution method (20). The antimicrobial agents used were ampicillin, cephalothin, tetracycline, and nalidixic acid (Sigma Chemical, St. Louis, Mo.); cefotaxime (Aventis, Frankfurt, Germany); cefoxitin (Merck Sharp & Dohme, Rahway, N.J.); sulbactam (Pfizer Korea, Seoul, Korea); chloramphenicol (Chong Kun Dang, Seoul, Korea); sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim (Dong Wha Pharmaceutical, Seoul, Korea); and ciprofloxacin (Bayer Korea, Seoul, Korea). Escherichia coli strain ATCC 25922 was used for quality control.
Conjugation and plasmid preparation. Resistance transfer was tested by an agar mating method with nalidixic acid-resistant recipient E. coli RG 176. The plasmid was isolated by the alkaline lysis method (25), and the plasmid size was estimated by comparing it to those of plasmids from E. coli strain V517 and Klebsiella pneumoniae ATCC 700603.
PCR. DNAs were extracted by boiling whole cells and were used as templates. The alleles for blaTEM and the class 1 integron were detected by methods reported previously (4, 13). A 365-bp region of the RepHI1A replicon was amplified by PCR, which was based on previous studies (7, 26), with primer HI1A-F (5'-GGT CCA ACC CAT TGC TTT AC-3') and primer HI1A-R (5'-CAC GGA AAG AAA TCA CAA C-3'). A 285-bp oriT region was detected with primer F (5'-ATA TGG TAC CGG TTA TTG CTA CTT AAT GCC GA-3') and primer R (5'-ATA TAA GCT TAT CTG ATT CTG ACA TGT GCG-3') (12). E. coli strains YMC IEF-1 and ATCC 25922 were used as TEM-1-positive and -negative controls, respectively.
Isoelectric focusing. Bacterial cells were broken by sonication, and the supernatant was used to determine the isoelectric points of the ß-lactamases (16). Electrophoresis was performed with a commercial gel (pI 3 to 10) and a temperature control system (Novel Experimental Technology, San Diego, Calif.). After electrophoresis, the gel was overlaid with filter paper that had been soaked in a nitrocefin solution of 0.7 mg/ml. Sonicates of the following control strains, obtained from A. Bauernfeind (Munich, Germany), were used to determine the pIs: E. coli YMC IEF-1 (TEM-1, pI 5.4), YMC IEF-3 (TEM-52, pI 6.0), and Cho-TC (CMY-1, pI 8.0) and K. pneumoniae YMC IEF-4 (SHV-3, pI 7.0) and YMC IEF-5 (SHV-2, pI 7.6).
Nucleotide sequencing. PCR products were used to analyze the nucleotide sequences of blaTEM in YMC 95/6/4405S and blaOXA-containing class 1 integrons in YMC 95/6/4405S and YMC 98/P110N. After electrophoresis of the PCR products, the DNA was extracted with a gel extraction kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) and was used for direct sequencing. Both strands were analyzed by the dideoxy-chain termination method with an ABI 3700 autosequencer (Perkin-Elmer, Foster City, Calif.).
Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Agarose-embedded chromosomal DNAs of Salmonella serovar Typhi were prepared according to the instructions of the instrument manufacturer (Bio-Rad, Hercules, Calif.). The DNA was digested with XbaI, and the bands were separated with a CHEF-DR II system (Bio-Rad). The electrophoresis conditions were as follows: switch times, an initial 0.5 s and a final 30 s; field strength, 6 V; and run time, 20 h. After electrophoresis, the gel was stained with ethidium bromide and the band patterns were compared both visually and by using Uniband/MAP software (UVItec Ltd., Cambridge, United Kingdom). The confidence level was set at 2% to show a similarity of 1.0 for two lanes with visually identical patterns and a similarity of approximately 0.9 for possibly related patterns (a six-fragment difference), as recommended by Tenover et al. (28).
Nucleotide sequence accession numbers. The nucleotide sequences reported in this work have been assigned to the GenBank database under accession numbers AY245101 (the dhfr7-carrying class 1 integron) and AY348316 (aacA4 and blaOXA-1-like gene carrying the class 1 integron).
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TABLE 1. Trends in isolation of enteric pathogens from stool specimens at a medical college-affiliated hospital in Seoul and antimicrobial susceptibilities of Salmonella serovar Typhi isolates
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The antimicrobial susceptibilities of chloramphenicol-resistant and -susceptible recent clinical isolates were compared. Among the 12 chloramphenicol-resistant Salmonella serovar Typhi strains isolated from 1992 to 1998, 11 also showed resistance to ampicillin and co-trimoxazole (Table 2). The ranges of MICs of nalidixic acid and ciprofloxacin were 4 to 8 and
0.015 µg/ml, respectively, for both chloramphenicol-resistant and -susceptible isolates.
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TABLE 2. Comparison of susceptibilities of chloramphenicol-susceptible and -resistant Salmonella serovar Typhi isolates
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TABLE 3. Characteristics of MDR Salmonella serovar Typhi isolates
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blaTEM alleles were detected in all of the ampicillin-resistant isolates, and the isolates had bands for a ß-lactamase of pI 5.4. A PCR amplicon from an isolate (strain 2) had sequences identical to those of blaTEM-1. This suggests that all isolates had the TEM-1 ß-lactamase. In our study, class 1 integrons were detected by PCR in all 11 MDR isolates. They were ca. 1.2 kb in 10 isolates and ca. 2.3 kb in 1 isolate. Sequencing of the 1.2-kb integron from one isolate (strain 2) showed carriage of a dhfr7 gene cassette (Fig. 1A). The strain carrying a 2.3-kb integron had a ß-lactamase band of ca. pI 7.4. Sequencing showed that the integron carried aacA4, blaOXA-1-like resistance gene cassettes, and a short unknown open reading frame (Fig. 1B).
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FIG. 1. Schematic structures of class 1 integrons in multidrug-resistant Salmonella serovar Typhi isolates. (A) The integron in strain YMC 95/6/4405S contained only one resistance gene cassette, dhfr7 (GenBank accession no. AY245101). (B) The integron in strain YMC 98/P110N contained two resistance gene cassettes, aacA4 and a blaOXA-1-like cassette (GenBank accession no. AY348316).
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FIG. 2. PFGE patterns of XbaI-digested genomic DNA of 11 MDR isolates, 1 chloramphenicol-resistant isolate, and 14 antimicrobial-susceptible isolates of Salmonella serovar Typhi. The pattern of the first MDR strain, which was isolated in 1992 (type A), was different from those of the remaining 10 MDR strains, which were isolated from 1995 to 1998 and which clustered together (types C to E). One strain (type M), which was isolated in 1998 and which was resistant only to chloramphenicol, clustered together with six susceptible strains (types K, L, N, O, and P) isolated in 1989. All nine antimicrobial-susceptible strains isolated in 1998 clustered together (types F to I).
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Among the chloramphenicol-resistant Salmonella serovar Typhi strains isolated in the 1990s, 1 chloramphenicol-resistant isolate was susceptible to ampicillin and co-trimoxazole, but the remaining 11 were also resistant to ampicillin and co-trimoxazole (Table 2). Some of the chloramphenicol-resistant isolates were either intermediate or resistant to cephalothin or tetracycline (Table 2), but all 11 MDR isolates were susceptible to ciprofloxacin and nalidixic acid. Ciprofloxacin is recommended as the drug of choice for the treatment of multidrug-resistant Salmonella serovar Typhi infections (18). However, an NIHK study suggested that the clinical failure of empirical fluoroquinolone treatment might occur, as the nalidixic acid resistance rate rapidly increased from 3.5% in 2001 to 23.3% in 2002, with resistance detected in 138 and 58 isolates, respectively (data not shown). Low-level fluoroquinolone resistance can be detected by testing only for nalidixic acid resistance (5). It is a concern that ceftriaxone remains the only drug of choice for the treatment of infections due to ampicillin- and fluoroquinolone-resistant isolates.
It was reported that most MDR Salmonella serovar Typhi isolates have a conjugative plasmid of the IncHI1 type. This plasmid has been implicated as a significant factor in the persistence and reemergence of Salmonella serovar Typhi (11, 19). The reported sizes of the plasmids were quite variable: 220 and 290 kb in isolates from Bangladesh (8); 91.2 MDa in isolates from Tehran, Iran (1); and 110 to 120 MDa in isolates from India (30). The type of ß-lactamase reported was mostly TEM-1. Most of our MDR strains also had similar characteristics: they had a ca. 120-MDa conjugative plasmids of the IncHI1 type, they transferred MDR en bloc, and they had the TEM-1 ß-lactamase. However, a few of our isolates showed heterogeneity. Repeated attempts to transfer the resistance by conjugation from the first chloramphenicol-resistant strain isolated in Korea (strain 1 in Table 3) failed, even at 28°C; one isolate was PCR negative for the oriT allele.
Integrons are a major vehicle for the spread of multiple-antibiotic resistance (14). Class 1 integrons were detected in all 11 MDR isolates. Their sizes were ca. 1.2 kb in all except one isolate, in which it was ca. 2.3 kb. The smaller integron contained only a dhfr7 resistance gene cassette, but the larger one contained aacA4 and blaOXA-1-like gene cassettes (Fig. 1). Ploy et al. (24) reported that all 18 of their resistant Salmonella serovar Typhi isolates had class 1 integrons with dfrVII gene cassettes. Pai et al. (22) reported that an MDR strain isolated in Korea in 1999 had a class 1 integron with the aacA4b, catB8, aadA1, dfrA1, and aac(6')-IIa gene cassettes and a novel blaP2 cassette. blaP2 is a carbenicillinase gene. These results obtained from studies performed in Korea indicate the existence of various ß-lactamase genes in ampicillin-resistant Salmonella serovar Typhi isolates.
In a comparison of various molecular characteristics, Ling et al. (15) reported that isolates obtained in Hong Kong in 1985 to 1997 differed from those obtained in Vietnam in 1989 and 1990. They reported that 37% of the Vietnamese isolates belonged to two predominant clones. It was reported that the PFGE pattern of XbaI-digested genomic DNA of Salmonella serovar Typhi was stable (29). Interestingly, 7 of our 11 MDR isolates had identical PFGE patterns (Fig. 2, type C), and that pattern was also apparently identical to that of the MDR strains isolated in 1993 and 1994 in India (Fig. 2, lanes 7, 8, and 10, in reference 26) and to that of 1 of 5 Indonesian isolates recovered in 1992 and 1994 (Fig. 1A, lane 14, in reference 29). These results indicate that our MDR strains are related to those in other countries. Ispahani and Slack (9) reported that from 1980 to 1997 all 21 typhoid fever patients at a hospital in the United Kingdom were of Asian descent, and some had a history of travel to Asia. Some of these isolates were MDR strains. With increasing international travel, the further spread of MDR strains can be anticipated. Seven of our eight MDR strains with identical PFGE types were isolated from patients in five cities in one province, suggesting clonal spread. Routine antimicrobial susceptibility testing of Salmonella serovar Typhi isolates became crucial for the optimal treatment of typhoid fever patients in Korea.
In conclusion, the characteristics of chloramphenicol-resistant strains isolated in Korea from 1992 to 1998 were mostly similar to those reported for isolates in other countries: they were MDR, carried large conjugative IncHI1 plasmids, had the TEM-1 ß-lactamase, and had class 1 integrons. Some strains had subtle differences in characteristics: the nontransferability of resistance or an integron with a blaOXA gene cassette. With the emergence of MDR Salmonella serovar Typhi in Korea, susceptibility testing became necessary for selection of the antimicrobial agents that could be used for the optimal treatment of patients.
We are grateful to research assistants Younghee Suh and Chasoon Lee for technical assistance.
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