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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Antimicrobials, Resistance and Chemotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1543509
This article is part of the Research Topic Opportunistic pathogens: pathogenesis and multi-drug resistance mechanisms View all 9 articles
High Prevalence of Carbapenem-Resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa and identification of a novel VIM-type metallo-β-lactamase, VIM-92, in Clinical Isolates from Northern China
Provisionally accepted- 1 First Affiliated Hospital of Hebei North University, Zhangjiakou, China
- 2 Department of Infectious Diseases, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Hangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
- 3 Department of Pharmacy, Cangzhou Central Hospital, Cangzhou, China
Carbapenem-Resistant Pseudomonas Aeruginosa (CRPA) has become a serious global health concern due to the limited treatment options. The primary resistance mechanism in CRPA involves the production of metallo-β-lactamases (MBLs), making MBL-producing P. aeruginosa a significant component of CRPA cases. To understand the prevalence of CRPA in hospitals in northern China, we conducted a preliminary screening and identification of CRPA in 143 clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa collected from various departments of a tertiary hospital between 2021 and 2023, analyzing CRPA resistance trends in certain regions of northern China during this period. We identified 71 CRPA isolates that exhibited high carbapenem resistance and phylogenetic tree analysis revealed that ST244 CRPA isolates had widely spread across various departments of the same hospital over three consecutive years. We also identified two VIM-producing isolates, PJK40 and PJK43, both of which carried the same novel VIM-type metallo-β-lactamase, VIM-92, encoded by a newly identified gene, blaVIM-92, closely related to blaVIM-24. blaVIM-92 was embedded in class 1 integrons within the Tn1403 transposon. The blaVIM-92-carrying plasmid, pPJK40, was found to resemble the pJB37 megaplasmid. The expression of VIM-92 and VIM-24 in DH5α and PAO1 revealed similar effects of the MICs of β-lactams, except for aztreonam. The high prevalence of CRPA in clinical settings, and the identification of VIM-92, highlights the urgent need for ongoing surveillance of CRPA and emerging MBL variants in P. aeruginosa.
Keywords: Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Epidemiological investigation, metallo-β-lactamase, VIM-92, Plasmid
Received: 11 Dec 2024; Accepted: 13 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, Pu, Liu, Cai, Han, Yu and Tang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yunning Liu, First Affiliated Hospital of Hebei North University, Zhangjiakou, China
Heng Cai, Department of Infectious Diseases, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Hangzhou, 310016, Jiangsu Province, China
Meijuan Han, Department of Pharmacy, Cangzhou Central Hospital, Cangzhou, 061001, China
Yunsong Yu, Department of Infectious Diseases, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Hangzhou, 310016, Jiangsu Province, China
Jianhua Tang, First Affiliated Hospital of Hebei North University, Zhangjiakou, China
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