Molecular Characterization of OXA-198 Carbapenemase-Producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa Clinical Isolates

Carbapenemase-producing Pseudomonadaceae have increasingly been reported worldwide, with an ever-increasing heterogeneity of carbapenem resistance mechanisms, depending on the bacterial species and the geographical location. OXA-198 is a plasmid-encoded class D beta-lactamase involved in carbapenem resistance in one Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolate from Belgium. In the setting of a multicenter survey of carbapenem resistance in P. aeruginosa strains in Belgian hospitals in 2013, three additional OXA-198-producing P. aeruginosa isolates originating from patients hospitalized in one hospital were detected. To reveal the molecular mechanism underlying the reduced susceptibility to carbapenems, MIC determinations, whole-genome sequencing, and PCR analyses to confirm the genetic organization were performed. The plasmid harboring the blaOXA-198 gene was characterized, along with the genetic relatedness of the four P. aeruginosa isolates. The blaOXA-198 gene was harbored on a class 1 integron carried by an similar to 4 9-kb IncP-type plasmid proposed as IncP-11. The same plasmid was present in all four P. aeruginosa isolates. Multilocus sequence typing revealed that the isolates all belonged to sequence type 446, and single-nucleotide polymorphism analysis revealed only a few differences between the isolates. This report describes the structure of a 49-kb plasmid harboring the blaOXA-198 gene and presents the first description of OXA-198-producing P. aeruginosa isolates associated with a hospital-associated cluster episode.