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Endemicity of OXA-23 and OXA-72 in clinical isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii from three neighbouring countries in Southeast Europe

  • Microbial Genetics • Original Paper
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Abstract

According to the World Health Organization, bacterium Acinetobacter baumannii is the first on the critical priority list of pathogens in urgent need for new antibiotics. The increasing resistance of A. baumannii to the last-line treatment options, including carbapenems, is a global problem. We report the molecular epidemiology of 12 carbapenem-resistant clinical isolates of A. baumannii collected from hospitalised patients in three neighbouring countries in Southeast Europe: Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, giving an insight into the molecular characterisation and evolutionary history of the acquisition of resistance genes. Besides the blaOXA-23 gene, the endemic presence of OXA-72 oxacillinase of the same origin for more than a decade as the leading mechanism of carbapenem resistance in Southeast Europe was confirmed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that investigates and analyses the phylogenetic association of the most common mechanisms of resistance to carbapenems in clinical isolates of A. baumannii originating from three neighbouring countries in Southeast Europe.

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Funding

This research was supported by awards for excellence (institutional funding) of the University of Split School of Medicine and the Croatian Science Foundation (grant no. IP-2014-09-5656). The blaOXA-72 gene sequence determined in this study has been marked as Cro1 and deposited in GenBank under number MN366238. The blaOXA-23 gene sequences determined in this study has been marked as Cro2 and deposited in GenBank under number MT393582.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Split School of Medicine, HR-21000, Split, Croatia

    Ivana Goic-Barisic, Marija Tonkic, Anita Novak, Zana Rubic & Marina Radic

  2. University Hospital of Split, Split, Croatia

    Ivana Goic-Barisic, Marija Tonkic, Anita Novak, Zana Rubic & Marina Radic

  3. Institute of Public Health of Split and Dalmatia Country, Split, Croatia

    Ana Kovacic

  4. Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia

    Deana Medic

  5. Institute of Public Health of Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Serbia

    Deana Medic & Biljana Milosavljević

  6. University Clinical Hospital of Mostar and University of Mostar School of Medicine, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

    Sanja Jakovac & Tanja Petrovic

  7. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Jasna Hrenovic

Authors
  1. Ivana Goic-Barisic
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  2. Ana Kovacic
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  3. Deana Medic
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  4. Sanja Jakovac
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  5. Tanja Petrovic
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  6. Marija Tonkic
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  7. Anita Novak
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  8. Zana Rubic
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  9. Marina Radic
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  10. Biljana Milosavljević
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  11. Jasna Hrenovic
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Contributions

IGB designed the study and collected clinical strains from the UHS, and wrote the draft of the manuscript; AK performed molecular investigation and phylogenetic analyses; DM and BM collected isolates from CCV and performed susceptibility testing; SJ and TP collected isolates from the UCHM and performed susceptibility testing; MT interpreted the data and helped in the manuscript preparation; AN, ZR, and MR helped in the PFGE analysis, interpretation of the obtained data, and manuscript preparation. JH supervised the project. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ivana Goic-Barisic.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Communicated by: Agnieszka Szalewska-Palasz

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The part of this investigation was presented as a poster on the 12th International Symposium on the Biology of Acinetobacter in September 2019, in Frankfurt, Germany.

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Goic-Barisic, I., Kovacic, A., Medic, D. et al. Endemicity of OXA-23 and OXA-72 in clinical isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii from three neighbouring countries in Southeast Europe. J Appl Genetics 62, 353–359 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13353-021-00612-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13353-021-00612-9

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