Fuzi Miklos, Sokurenko Evgeni
Independent Researcher, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
Department of Microbiology, University of Washington School of Medicine, 1705 NE Pacific St., Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
Pathogens. 2023 Sep 10;12(9):1150. doi: 10.3390/pathogens12091150.
It is widely accepted that favorable fitness in commensal colonization is one of the prime facilitators of clonal dissemination in bacteria. The question arises as to what kind of fitness advantage may be wielded by uropathogenic strains of the two predominant fluoroquinolone- and multidrug-resistant clonal groups of -ST131-H30 and ST1193, which has permitted their unprecedented pandemic-like global expansion in the last few decades. The colonization-associated genes' content, carriage of low-cost plasmids, and integrons with weak promoters could certainly contribute to the fitness of the pandemic groups, although those genetic factors are common among other clonal groups as well. Also, ST131-H30 and ST1193 strains harbor fluoroquinolone-resistance conferring mutations targeting serine residues in DNA gyrase (GyrA-S83) and topoisomerase IV (ParC-S80) that, in those clonal backgrounds, might result in a commensal fitness benefit, i.e., beyond the antibiotic resistance per se. This fitness gain might have contributed not only to the widespread dissemination of these major clones in the healthcare setting but also to their long-term colonization of healthy individuals and, thus, circulation in the community, even in a low or no fluoroquinolone use environment. This evolutionary shift affecting commensal , initiated by mutations co-favorable in both antibiotics-treated patients and healthy individuals warrants more in-depth studies to monitor further changes in the epidemiological situation and develop effective measures to reduce the antibiotic resistance spread.
人们普遍认为,共生菌定植时良好的适应性是细菌克隆传播的主要促进因素之一。问题在于,在过去几十年中,两种主要的氟喹诺酮耐药和多重耐药克隆群——ST131-H30和ST1193的尿路致病性菌株可能具有何种适应性优势,从而使其实现了前所未有的类似大流行的全球扩张。定植相关基因的含量、低成本质粒的携带以及启动子较弱的整合子肯定有助于大流行群体的适应性,尽管这些遗传因素在其他克隆群中也很常见。此外,ST131-H30和ST1193菌株携带针对DNA旋转酶(GyrA-S83)和拓扑异构酶IV(ParC-S80)中丝氨酸残基的氟喹诺酮耐药性突变,在这些克隆背景下,这些突变可能会带来共生适应性益处,即超出抗生素耐药性本身。这种适应性增强可能不仅有助于这些主要克隆在医疗机构中的广泛传播,还有助于它们在健康个体中的长期定植,进而在社区中传播,即使在氟喹诺酮使用量低或不使用的环境中也是如此。这种由抗生素治疗患者和健康个体中共同有利的突变引发的影响共生菌的进化转变,需要更深入的研究来监测流行病学情况的进一步变化,并制定有效的措施来减少抗生素耐药性的传播。