Whole genome sequencing of microbial pathogens: reading from the book of Acinetobacter (Malaysian Edition)

Chieng, Yeo Chew (2021) Whole genome sequencing of microbial pathogens: reading from the book of Acinetobacter (Malaysian Edition). In: 45th Annual Conference of the Malaysian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology/2nd International Health and Medical Science Conference, 18-19 Aug 2021, Virtual.

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Abstract

Acinetobacter baumannii is a Gram-negative nosocomial pathogen of concern due to its unique ability to acquire and develop resistance to all classes of antimicrobials. The World Health Organization (WHO) has even listed carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii as a top priority pathogen in urgent need of new antimicrobials. We have carried out whole genome sequencing of A. baumannii along with non-baumannii Acinetobacter isolates obtained from the main tertiary hospital in Terengganu, Malaysia, over a period of five years (2011 – 2016). Majority of the Terengganu Acinetobacter hospital isolates were A. baumannii and WGS showed that the multidrug resistant Global Clone 2 (GC2) lineage of A. baumannii was endemic in the Terengganu hospital in 2011 – 2012 but that has been supplanted by a variety of other clones in 2015 – 2016. Our “Reading from the book of Acinetobacter” also led to the discovery of a large ca. 170 kb potentially transmissible plasmid that encode the New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) and OXA-58 carbapenemase along with a host of other resistance genes in a clinical isolate of A. baumannii and A. nosocomialis. Sequence analysis indicated that this plasmid was derived from a cointegration of two separate plasmids that were reported from a clinical isolate of A. pittii from Perak. The presence of such plasmids encoding resistance to multiple antimicrobials warrants vigilance as its spread to susceptible strains would lead to increasing incidence of antimicrobial resistance.

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