Intra- and inter-species spread of carbapenemase genes in a non-hospitalized patient

The purpose of this study was to report intra- and inter-species spread of carbapenemase genes between gram negative rods isolated from a non-hospitalized patient with bacteremia. The approach included chart review, antibiotic susceptibility testing and phenotypic screening for metallo-beta-lactamase (MBL) detection, PCR and sequencing of bla, aac(6')-Ib and qnr genes, and plasmid analysis by PCR-based replicon typing. The clonal relationships between the isolates were analysed by comparing PFGE profiles. A non-hospitalized patient presented bacteraemia due to wild type Enterobacter cloacae (4.08), a VIM-1-producing E. cloacae (5.08), a VIM-1- and CTX-M-9-producing E. cloacae (7.08), a VIM-2-producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and catheter colonization by VIM-1-producing Klebsiella oxytoca. The patient had no previous hospitalization but had recently undergone an ambulatory colonoscopy. In E. cloacae 7.08 and K. oxytoca isolates, the bla (VIM-1) gene was located on a transferable plasmid of 48.5 kb, while in E. cloacae 5.08 the bla (VIM-1) gene was encoded on a 194 kb non-transferable plasmid. The bla (CTX-M-9) gene detected in E. cloacae was encoded on an HI2 plasmid of 290 kb. To date the prevalence of VIM-1 enzymes in the community is low. This molecular finding suggests an intra-species and/or inter-species horizontal spread of the MBL gene in the same non-hospitalized patient.