Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health, Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
State Key Lab of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong.
Trends Microbiol. 2021 Jan;29(1):65-83. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2020.04.012. Epub 2020 May 21.
Klebsiella pneumoniae has an exceptional ability to acquire exogenous resistance-encoding and hypervirulence-encoding genetic elements. In this review we trace the key evolutionary routes of plasmids involved in the dissemination of such elements; we observed diverse, but convergent, evolutionary paths that eventually led to the emergence of conjugative plasmids which simultaneously encode carbapenem resistance and hypervirulence. One important evolutionary feature of these plasmids is that they contain a wide range of transposable elements that enable them to undergo frequent genetic transposition, resulting in plasmid fusion and presumably better adaptation of the plasmid to the bacterial host. Identifying the key molecular markers of resistance and virulence-bearing conjugative plasmids allows improved tracking and control of the life-threatening carbapenem-resistant and hypervirulent strains of K. pneumoniae.
肺炎克雷伯菌具有非凡的能力获取外源性耐药性编码和高致病性编码遗传元件。在这篇综述中，我们追溯了参与这些元件传播的质粒的关键进化途径；我们观察到了不同但趋同的进化路径，最终导致了同时编码碳青霉烯类耐药性和高致病性的可接合质粒的出现。这些质粒的一个重要进化特征是它们包含广泛的可移动元件，使它们能够频繁地进行基因转位，导致质粒融合，并推测使质粒更好地适应细菌宿主。鉴定携带耐药性和毒力的可接合质粒的关键分子标记，有助于更好地跟踪和控制危及生命的耐碳青霉烯类和高致病性肺炎克雷伯菌。
