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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, December 2003, p. 3994-3995, Vol. 47, No. 12
0066-4804/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AAC.47.12.3994-3995.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Extended-Spectrum ß-Lactamase TEM-24 in an Aeromonas Clinical Strain: Acquisition from the Prevalent Enterobacter aerogenes Clone in France

LETTER
The
TEM-24 extended-spectrum ß-lactamase (ESBL), initially
characterized
in
Klebsiella pneumoniae
(
3), is currently the
predominant ESBL
in France
(
4). This could be related
to the spread of a TEM-24-producing
Enterobacter aerogenes
clone present in most French hospitals
(
1)
but also found in
Belgium (
5) and Spain
(
2). TEM-24 enzyme has
been
recovered from an increasing number of species of the family
Enterobacteriaceae
(
6,
8)
and in
Pseudomonas
aeruginosa (
7). In
contrast, resistance to
expanded-spectrum cephalosporins mediated by
ESBLs has never
been described in the genus
Aeromonas, for
which ß-lactam
resistance involves three chromosomally mediated
enzymes: a
cephalosporinase, a penicillinase, and a carbapenemase
(
9).
We report the
first characterization of a TEM-24-producing clinical
Aeromonas strain. 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) and gyrB
sequencing (10) showed
that the strain was most closely related to Aeromonas caviae.
This strain was recovered together with an ESBL-producing E.
aerogenes isolate from the diarrheal feces of a 76-year-old man
admitted to Montpellier Hospital for intestinal ischemia. Based on the
resistance phenotype observed after the disk diffusion assay, both
E. aerogenes and Aeromonas sp. isolates were
suspected to produce ceftazidimase-type ESBL and AAC(6')-I
enzyme. Synergy was clearly observed between expanded-spectrum
cephalosporins and clavulanate. The resistance phenotype was
transferred in Escherichia coli C600 by mating experiments
using Mueller-Hinton agar (Sanofi Diagnostics Pasteur,
Marnes-la-Coquette, France) containing ceftazidime (4 µg/ml).
The MICs of ß-lactams showed high levels of resistance with the
E. aerogenes strain and the two transconjugants for
penicillins (64 to >2,048 µg/ml), ceftazidime (512 to
1,048 µg/ml), and aztreonam (64 to 1,048 µg/ml). A low
level of resistance or decrease in susceptibility was observed for
cefotaxime (4 to 8 µg/ml). The Aeromonas sp. strain
showed lower resistance levels (penicillins, 8 to 256 µg/ml;
ceftazidime, 64 µg/ml; and aztreonam, 8 µg/ml).
Clavulanate and tazobactam partially or completely restored the
susceptibility to penicillins. ESBL characterization was performed for
the two isolates by isoelectric focusing, ESBL-encoding gene
amplification and sequencing, and plasmid content analysis
(6,
7). The ESBLs were focused
at a pI of 6.5. The sequence of ESBL-encoding genes shared 100%
identity with the blaTEM-24 gene. Plasmids of
approximately 180 kb, which displayed similar restriction patterns,
were isolated from the two strains and their transconjugants. These
results suggested an in vivo transfer of TEM-24-encoding plasmid from
E. aerogenes to Aeromonas sp. in the intestinal
tract.
We have previously reported the transfer of 180-kb
TEM-24-encoding plasmid from E. aerogenes to Providencia
rettgeri CIP 107053
(6) and P.
aeruginosa CIP 107051
(7). A comparative study
of the restriction profiles obtained for the plasmids recovered from
these organisms and from the strains analyzed here revealed similar
restriction patterns (Fig.
1). Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis of the E.
aerogenes strains isolated in this study and previously
(6,
7) revealed that they
belong to the TEM-24-producing E. aerogenes clone prevalent in
France.
This clone had disseminated the same TEM-24-encoding
plasmid
among various bacterial species for several years. The
isolation
of a TEM-24-producing
Aeromonas sp. strain extends
the list
of TEM-24-harboring bacteria, and this wide host range is one
of
the factors responsible for the persistence and spread of the
TEM-24-encoding
plasmid.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank
Marlène Jan, Rolande Perroux, and Dominique
Rubio for technical
assistance in ESBL characterization. We
are also very grateful to
Josiane Campos for PFGE analysis and
to Corinne Teyssier for 16S rDNA
and
gyrB gene sequence
analysis.

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| | | | | |
H. Marchandin* S. Godreuil H. Darbas H. Jean-Pierre
Laboratoire de
Bactériologie Hôpital Arnaud de Villeneuve 371,
Avenue du Doyen Gaston Giraud 34295 Montpellier Cedex 5,
France
E. Jumas-Bilak
Laboratoire de
Bactériologie-Virologie Faculté de
Pharmacie Montpellier,
France
C. Chanal R. Bonnet
Laboratoire de
Bactériologie Faculté de
Médecine Clermont-Ferrand,
France
|
| | | | | |
* Phone: 33 4 67 33 58
84Fax: 33 4 67 33 58 93E-mail:
h-marchandin{at}chu-montpellier.fr |
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, December 2003, p. 3994-3995, Vol. 47, No. 12
0066-4804/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AAC.47.12.3994-3995.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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