Antibiotic resistance determinants in a Pseudomonas putida strain isolated from a hospital

PLoS One. 2014 Jan 17;9(1):e81604. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0081604. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Environmental microbes harbor an enormous pool of antibiotic and biocide resistance genes that can impact the resistance profiles of animal and human pathogens via horizontal gene transfer. Pseudomonas putida strains are ubiquitous in soil and water but have been seldom isolated from humans. We have established a collection of P. putida strains isolated from in-patients in different hospitals in France. One of the isolated strains (HB3267) kills insects and is resistant to the majority of the antibiotics used in laboratories and hospitals, including aminoglycosides, ß-lactams, cationic peptides, chromoprotein enediyne antibiotics, dihydrofolate reductase inhibitors, fluoroquinolones and quinolones, glycopeptide antibiotics, macrolides, polyketides and sulfonamides. Similar to other P. putida clinical isolates the strain was sensitive to amikacin. To shed light on the broad pattern of antibiotic resistance, which is rarely found in clinical isolates of this species, the genome of this strain was sequenced and analysed. The study revealed that the determinants of multiple resistance are both chromosomally-borne as well as located on the pPC9 plasmid. Further analysis indicated that pPC9 has recruited antibiotic and biocide resistance genes from environmental microorganisms as well as from opportunistic and true human pathogens. The pPC9 plasmid is not self-transmissible, but can be mobilized by other bacterial plasmids making it capable of spreading antibiotic resistant determinants to new hosts.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Anti-Bacterial Agents / pharmacology
  • Bacterial Proteins / chemistry
  • Chromosomes, Bacterial / genetics
  • Drug Resistance, Microbial / drug effects
  • Drug Resistance, Microbial / genetics*
  • Genome, Bacterial / genetics
  • Genomic Islands / genetics
  • Hospitals*
  • Humans
  • Microbial Sensitivity Tests
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Plasmids / genetics
  • Pseudomonas putida / drug effects
  • Pseudomonas putida / genetics*
  • Pseudomonas putida / isolation & purification*
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA

Substances

  • Anti-Bacterial Agents
  • Bacterial Proteins

Associated data

  • GENBANK/CP003738
  • GENBANK/CP003739

Grants and funding

Funds were recieved from ERANET BIO2008-04419-E and BIO2010-17227. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.