Presencia de integrones y su relación con la resistencia a cefalosporinas de tercera generación en cepas de acinetobacter baumannii de origen nosocomial / Presence of integrons and their relationship with the resistance to third generation cephalosporins among nosocomial isolates of acinetobacter baumannii

Background: Acinetobacter baumannii is an important etiological agent causing nosocomial infections. High level of resistance for different kind of antimicrobials has been observed, including ß-lactam antibiotics. This feature, chromosomal or plasmid encoded, has been associated to integrons harbouring antibiotic resistance gene cassettes. Aims: To investigate the presence of integrons among clinical isolates resistant to third generation cephalosporins (3GC). Material and methods: One hundred A. baumannii strains isolated from several Chilean hospitals were included in this study. Minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of 3GC by an agar dilution method were carried out. Integrons class 1, 2 and 3 were investigated by colony blot hybridisation and confirmed by PCR. Results: High level of resistance to all assayed 3GC was observed. On the other hand, integrón class 2 was the most prevalent (77 percent of isolates) followed by integron class 1 (52 percent). Forty six percent of isolates hybridised with probes for both of them. However, no positive hybridisation was detected for integron class 3. Conclusions: Nevertheless, most isolates harboured one or both class of integron; there was no direct relationship between the presence of these genetic structures and the resistance to this kind of ß-lactam antibiotics

Dissemination of plasmid-mediated amikacin resistance among pathogenic Klebsiella pneumoniae

Se analizó el contenido plasmídico de una serie de cepas de Klebsiella pneumoniae resistentes a amikacina y otros antibióticos. Estas cepas se identificaron como causantes de epidemias intrahospitalares en unidades pediátricas situadas en distintas localidades geográficas de Argentina. En todos los casos se encontraron plásmidos que poseían determinantes genéticos para resistencia a amikacina. Mediante análisis realizados con cortes con enzimas de restricción e hibridizaciones se determinó la presencia de elementos transponibles relacionados a Tn 1331 en todos las cepas estudiadas. Estos resultados indican que la transposición de estos elementos ha jugado un papel importante en el proceso de diseminación de la resistencia a la amikacina en el género Klebsiella (y probablemente en otras bacterias gram negativas) en Argentina