Environmental microbiota represents a natural reservoir for dissemination of clinically relevant metallo-beta-lactamases

Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2011 Nov;55(11):5376-9. doi: 10.1128/AAC.00716-11. Epub 2011 Aug 22.

Abstract

A total of 10 metallo-β-lactamase-producing isolates of six different species, including Brevundimonas diminuta (n = 3), Rhizobium radiobacter (n = 2), Pseudomonas monteilii (n = 1), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n = 2), Ochrobactrum anthropi (n = 1), and Enterobacter ludwigii (n = 1), were detected in the sewage water of a hospital. The presence of bla(VIM-13) associated with a Tn1721-class 1 integron structure was detected in all but one of the isolates (E. ludwigii, which produced VIM-2), and in two of them (R. radiobacter), this structure was located on a plasmid, suggesting that environmental bacteria represent a reservoir for the dissemination of clinically relevant metallo-β-lactamase genes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Agrobacterium tumefaciens / enzymology
  • Agrobacterium tumefaciens / genetics
  • Enterobacter / enzymology
  • Enterobacter / genetics
  • Hospitals
  • Integrons / genetics
  • Ochrobactrum anthropi / enzymology
  • Ochrobactrum anthropi / genetics
  • Plasmids / genetics
  • Pseudomonas / enzymology
  • Pseudomonas / genetics
  • Pseudomonas aeruginosa / enzymology
  • Pseudomonas aeruginosa / genetics
  • Sewage / microbiology
  • Water Microbiology
  • beta-Lactamases / genetics*

Substances

  • Sewage
  • beta-Lactamases