Mobile colistin resistance (mcr) genes were described recently in Gram-negative bacteria including carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales. There are ten mcr genes described in different Gram-negative bacteria, however, Escherichia coli harboring mcr-1 gene is by far the most frequent combination. In Argentina, mcr-1 gene was characterized only on plasmids belonging to IncI2 group. The aim of this work was to get new insights of mcr-1-harboring plasmids from E. coli. Eight E. coli isolates from a larger collection of 192 clinical E. coli isolates carrying the mcr-1 gene were sequenced using next generation technologies. Three isolates belonged to ST131 high-risk clone, and five to single ST, ST38, ST46, ST226, ST224, and ST405. Eight diverse mcr-1-harboring plasmids were analyzed: IncI2 (1), IncX4 (3), IncHI2/2A (3) and a hybrid IncFIA/HI1A/HI1B (1) plasmid. Plasmids belonging to the IncI2 (n = 1) and IncX4 (n = 3) groups showed high similarity with previously described plasmids. Two IncHI2/HI2A plasmids, showed high identity between them, while the third, showed several differences including additional resistance genes like tet(A) and floR. One IncFIA/H1A/H1B hybrid plasmid was characterized, highly similar to pSRC27-H, a prototype plasmid lacking mcr genes. mcr-1.5 variant was found in four plasmids with three different Inc groups: IncI2, IncHI2/HI2A and the hybrid FIA/HI1A/HI1B plasmid. mcr-1.5 variant is almost exclusively described in our country and with a high frequency. In addition, six E. coli isolates carried three allelic variants codifying for CTX-M-type extended-spectrum-β-lactamases: blaCTX-M-2 (3), blaCTX-M-65 (2), and blaCTX-M-14 (1). It is the first description of mcr-1 harboring plasmids different to IncI2 group in our country. These results represents new insights about mcr-1 harboring plasmids recovered from E. coli human samples from Argentina, showing different plasmid backbones and resistance gene combinations.
Copyright: © 2024 Martino et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.