Analysis of 19 sequenced plasmids from an Acinetobacter baumannii collection isolated from Argennean hospitals

SALTO ILEANA PAULA; TORRES TEJERIZO GONZALO; WIBBERG, DANIEL; SCHLÜTER, ANDREAS; PISTORIO, MARIANO

Palm Cove, QLD

Congreso; International Society for plasmid Biology Scientific Meeting 2014; 2014

International Society for Plasmid Biology

Acinetobacterbaumannii is a gram-negative non-fermentative opportunistic pathogen found in intensive care units. It is one of the most frequent pathogens implicated in nosocomial infections whose treatment may present difficulties since its huge capacity to acquire different antimicrobial resistance mechanisms. Nowadays, new antibiotics are being searched due the presence of multi and pan-resistant bacteria. Resistance determinants can be incorporated by horizontal gene transfer, where plasmids play a very important role as a main evolutionary mechanism to transfer genetic information. In this work, we studied a plasmid collection from 64 different Acinetobacterbaumannii isolates from five different Buenos Aires hospitals. For this purpose, plasmids were isolated, purified and sequenced using MiSeq-Illumina technology. After assembly was done, we could identify 40 contigs. 23 of them corresponded to 19 complete replicons. Sizes were variable and this was consistent to the plasmids profiles observed. We could recognize 321 open reading frames. Ninety three percent of them, had homologues genes in GenBank database, 54% of known and 42 % of unknown function. Only a 7% of predicted ORFs would correspond to new proteins. Genes associated with plasmid replication, segregation and maintenance and those associated with resistance to antibiotic, heavy metals and disinfectants were found among genes with a known function. Here we describe and classify all the information contained in this replicons. Further analyses were made to identify isolates that harbor an Ag/Cu metal resistance cluster. This isolates showed resistance when grown in the presence of these compounds. This work was carried out in order to compare and understand how these microorganisms are able to survive, prevail and cause severe infections, even though the continuous selection pressure conditions. We believe that understanding how these resistance plasmids can be transferred and maintained between microorganisms will help us to eradicate resistance dissemination within hospital environments.