Centre for Marine Science and Innovation, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Udayana University, Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia.
Appl Environ Microbiol. 2020 May 5;86(10). doi: 10.1128/AEM.02939-19.
Resistance to the "last-resort" antibiotics, such as carbapenems, has led to very few antibiotics being left to treat infections by multidrug-resistant bacteria. Spread of carbapenem resistance (CR) has been well characterized for the clinical environment. However, there is a lack of information about its environmental distribution. Our study reveals that CR is present in a wide range of Gram-negative bacteria in the coastal seawater environment, including four phyla, eight classes, and 30 genera. These bacteria were likely introduced into seawater via stormwater flows. Some CR isolates found here, such as , , , , , , and , are further relevant to human health. We also describe a novel metallo-β-lactamase (MBL) for marine isolates with CR, which has likely been horizontally transferred to or In contrast, another MBL of the New Delhi type was likely acquired by environmental isolates from , , or utilizing a plasmid. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence that the aquatic environment is both a reservoir and a vector for novel CR genes. Resistance against the "last-resort" antibiotics of the carbapenem family is often based on the production of carbapenemases, and this has been frequently observed in clinical samples. However, the dissemination of carbapenem resistance (CR) in the environment has been less well explored. Our study shows that CR is commonly found in a range of bacterial taxa in the coastal aquatic environment and can involve the exchange of novel metallo-β-lactamases from typical environmental bacteria to potential human pathogens or vice versa. The outcomes of this study contribute to a better understanding of how aquatic and marine bacteria can act as reservoirs and vectors for CR outside the clinical setting.
对“最后手段”抗生素（如碳青霉烯类）的耐药性导致可用于治疗多重耐药菌感染的抗生素寥寥无几。碳青霉烯耐药性（CR）在临床环境中的传播已得到充分描述。然而，关于其环境分布的信息却很缺乏。我们的研究表明，耐药性广泛存在于沿海海水环境中的多种革兰氏阴性菌中，包括四个门、八个纲和 30 个属。这些细菌可能是通过雨水径流进入海水的。这里发现的一些 CR 分离株，如 、 、 、 、 、 和 ，与人类健康进一步相关。我们还描述了一种新型的海洋 分离株的金属β-内酰胺酶（MBL），该酶可能已通过水平转移到 或 中。相比之下，另一种新德里型 MBL 可能是由环境 分离株从 、 或 中获得的，利用的是质粒。我们的研究结果进一步证明了水生环境既是新型 CR 基因的储存库，也是其传播的载体。对碳青霉烯类抗生素家族的“最后手段”的耐药性通常是基于碳青霉烯酶的产生，这在临床样本中经常观察到。然而，环境中碳青霉烯耐药性（CR）的传播尚未得到充分探索。我们的研究表明，CR 在沿海水生环境中的一系列细菌分类群中普遍存在，并且可能涉及从典型的环境细菌到潜在的人类病原体或反之的新型金属β-内酰胺酶的交换。本研究的结果有助于更好地理解水生和海洋细菌如何在临床环境之外充当 CR 的储存库和载体。
