Identification of a blaVIM-1-Carrying IncA/C2 Multiresistance Plasmid in an Escherichia coli Isolate Recovered from the German Food Chain

Natalie Pauly; Jens Andre Hammerl; Mirjam Grobbel; Annemarie Käsbohrer; Bernd-Alois Tenhagen; Burkhard Malorny; Stefan Schwarz; Diana Meemken; Alexandra Irrgang

doi:10.3390/microorganisms9010029

Identification of a bla_VIM-1-Carrying IncA/C₂ Multiresistance Plasmid in an Escherichia coli Isolate Recovered from the German Food Chain

Microorganisms. 2020 Dec 24;9(1):29. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms9010029.

Authors

Natalie Pauly¹, Jens Andre Hammerl¹, Mirjam Grobbel¹, Annemarie Käsbohrer^{1

2}, Bernd-Alois Tenhagen¹, Burkhard Malorny¹, Stefan Schwarz³, Diana Meemken⁴, Alexandra Irrgang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department Biological Safety, German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, 10589 Berlin, Germany.
² Institute for Veterinary Public Health, University of Veterinary Medicine, 1210 Vienna, Austria.
³ Institute of Microbiology and Epizootics, Freie Universität Berlin, 14163 Berlin, Germany.
⁴ Institute of Food Safety and Food Hygiene, Freie Universität Berlin, 14163 Berlin, Germany.

Abstract

Within the German national monitoring of zoonotic agents, antimicrobial resistance determination also targets carbapenemase-producing (CP) Escherichia coli by selective isolation from food and livestock. In this monitoring in 2019, the CP E. coli 19-AB01133 was recovered from pork shoulder. The isolate was assigned to the phylogenetic group B1 and exhibited the multi-locus sequence-type ST5869. Molecular investigations, including whole genome sequencing, of 19-AB01133 revealed that the isolate carried the resistance genes bla_VIM-1, bla_SHV-5 and bla_CMY-13 on a self-transmissible IncA/C₂ plasmid. The plasmid was closely related to the previously described VIM-1-encoding plasmid S15FP06257_p from E. coli of pork origin in Belgium. Our results indicate an occasional spread of the bla_VIM-1 gene in Enterobacteriaceae of the European pig population. Moreover, the bla_VIM-1 located on an IncA/C₂ plasmid supports the presumption of a new, probably human source of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) entering the livestock and food chain sector.

Keywords: IncA/C2; WGS; blaVIM-1; carbapenem; metallo-β-lactamase.

Abstract

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