Host-Microbe Interactions in Clinically Relevant Acinetobacter spp.: New Models of Acinetobacter spp. Virulence and Its Interactions with Antibiotic Resistance

A special issue of Antibiotics (ISSN 2079-6382).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 June 2022) | Viewed by 11293

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Grupo BIOMEDAGE, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Cantabria, Herrera Oria 2, 39011 Santander, Spain
Interests: antimicrobial agents; antibiotic resistance; genomic, proteomic; virulence factors; acinetobacter; corynebacterium
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Acinetobacter spp. is a complex genus that comprises up to 50 species. The species pathogenic for human cause nosocomial infections such as pneumonia and bacteremia. The most important determinant in clinical outcome of Acinetobacter infections is antibiotic resistance. The role of resistance in affecting intrinsic virulence is complex. Several virulence models have been developed for the study of Acinetobacter infections. Almost all of these models are tested in the absence of antibiotics, so the results and conclusions obtained show the weakness of not reproducing the reality of the clinical picture of an infected patient, who is treated with antibiotics from the moment Acinetobacter spp. is identified as causative agent of infection. Therefore, a limitation of current models of virulence and infection are that they are not performed in the presence of antibiotics and do not account for antibiotic treatment when assessing an organism’s virulence potential. 

This Special Issue invites the submission of articles in which all types of Acinetobacter spp infection models are tested in the presence of the first- or second-line antibiotics most used to treat these infections.

Dr. Jesús Navas
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • acinetobacter
  • resistance
  • infection
  • virulence model
  • antibiotic

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 2938 KiB  
Article
Interaction of Acinetobacter baumannii with Human Serum Albumin: Does the Host Determine the Outcome?
by Camila Pimentel, Casin Le, Marisel R. Tuttobene, Tomas Subils, Krisztina M. Papp-Wallace, Robert A. Bonomo, Marcelo E. Tolmasky and Maria Soledad Ramirez
Antibiotics 2021, 10(7), 833; https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics10070833 - 8 Jul 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2855
Abstract
Acinetobacter baumannii has become a serious threat to human health due to its extreme antibiotic resistance, environmental persistence, and capacity to survive within the host. Two A. baumannii strains, A118 and AB5075, commonly used as model systems, and three carbapenem-resistant strains, which are [...] Read more.
Acinetobacter baumannii has become a serious threat to human health due to its extreme antibiotic resistance, environmental persistence, and capacity to survive within the host. Two A. baumannii strains, A118 and AB5075, commonly used as model systems, and three carbapenem-resistant strains, which are becoming ever more dangerous due to the multiple drugs they can resist, were exposed to 3.5% human serum albumin (HSA) and human serum (HS) to evaluate their response with respect to antimicrobial resistance, biofilm formation, and quorum sensing, all features responsible for increasing survival and persistence in the environment and human body. Expression levels of antibiotic resistance genes were modified differently when examined in different strains. The cmlA gene was upregulated or downregulated in conditions of exposure to 3.5% HSA or HS depending on the strain. Expression levels of pbp1 and pbp3 tended to be increased by the presence of HSA and HS, but the effect was not seen in all strains. A. baumannii A118 growing in the presence of HS did not experience increased expression of these genes. Aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes were also expressed at higher or lower levels in the presence of HSA or HS. Still, the response was not uniform; in some cases, expression was enhanced, and in other cases, it was tapered. While A. baumannii AB5075 became more susceptible to rifampicin in the presence of 3.5% HSA or HS, strain A118 did not show any changes. Expression of arr2, a gene involved in resistance to rifampicin present in A. baumannii AMA16, was expressed at higher levels when HS was present in the culture medium. HSA and HS reduced biofilm formation and production of N-Acyl Homoserine Lactone, a compound intimately associated with quorum sensing. In conclusion, HSA, the main component of HS, stimulates a variety of adaptative responses in infecting A. baumannii strains. Full article
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15 pages, 1737 KiB  
Article
Antimicrobial Resistance Determinants in Genomes and Plasmids from Acinetobacter baumannii Clinical Isolates
by Itziar Chapartegui-González, María Lázaro-Díez, Santiago Redondo-Salvo, Jesús Navas and José Ramos-Vivas
Antibiotics 2021, 10(7), 753; https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics10070753 - 22 Jun 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3405
Abstract
Acinetobacter baumannii is a Gram-negative coccoid rod species, clinically relevant as a human pathogen, included in the ESKAPE group. Carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii (CRAB) are considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a critical priority pathogen for the research and development of new [...] Read more.
Acinetobacter baumannii is a Gram-negative coccoid rod species, clinically relevant as a human pathogen, included in the ESKAPE group. Carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii (CRAB) are considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a critical priority pathogen for the research and development of new antibiotics. Some of the most relevant features of this pathogen are its intrinsic multidrug resistance and its ability to acquire rapid and effective new resistant determinants against last-resort clinical antibiotics, mostly from other ESKAPE species. The presence of plasmids and mobile genetic elements in their genomes contributes to the acquisition of new antimicrobial resistance determinants. However, although A. baumannii has arisen as an important human pathogen, information about these elements is still not well understood. Current genomic analysis availability has increased our ability to understand the microevolution of bacterial pathogens, including point mutations, genetic dissemination, genomic stability, and pan- and core-genome compositions. In this work, we deeply studied the genomes of four clinical strains from our hospital, and the reference strain ATCC®19606TM, which have shown a remarkable ability to survive and maintain their effective capacity when subjected to long-term stress conditions. With that, our aim was presenting a detailed analysis of their genomes, including antibiotic resistance determinants and plasmid composition. Full article
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15 pages, 282 KiB  
Article
WGS-Based Analysis of Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in Vietnam and Molecular Characterization of Antimicrobial Determinants and MLST in Southeast Asia
by Gamal Wareth, Jörg Linde, Ngoc H. Nguyen, Tuan N. M. Nguyen, Lisa D. Sprague, Mathias W. Pletz and Heinrich Neubauer
Antibiotics 2021, 10(5), 563; https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics10050563 - 11 May 2021
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 4246
Abstract
Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii, CRAb) is an emerging global threat for healthcare systems, particularly in Southeast Asia. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology was employed to map genes associated with antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and to identify multilocus sequence types (MLST). Eleven strains [...] Read more.
Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii, CRAb) is an emerging global threat for healthcare systems, particularly in Southeast Asia. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology was employed to map genes associated with antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and to identify multilocus sequence types (MLST). Eleven strains isolated from humans in Vietnam were sequenced, and their AMR genes and MLST were compared to published genomes of strains originating from Southeast Asia, i.e., Thailand (n = 49), Myanmar (n = 38), Malaysia (n = 11), Singapore (n = 4) and Taiwan (n = 1). Ten out of eleven Vietnamese strains were CRAb and were susceptible only to colistin. All strains harbored ant(3”)-IIa, armA, aph(6)-Id and aph(3”) genes conferring resistance to aminoglycosides, and blaOXA-51 variants and blaADC-25 conferring resistance to ß-lactams. More than half of the strains harbored genes that confer resistance to tetracyclines, sulfonamides and macrolides. The strains showed high diversity, where six were assigned to sequence type (ST)/2, and two were allocated to two new STs (ST/1411-1412). MLST analyses of 108 strains from Southeast Asia identified 19 sequence types (ST), and ST/2 was the most prevalent found in 62 strains. A broad range of AMR genes was identified mediating resistance to ß-lactams, including cephalosporins and carbapenems (e.g., blaOXA-51-like, blaOXA-23, blaADC-25, blaADC-73, blaTEM-1, blaNDM-1), aminoglycosides (e.g., ant(3”)-IIa, aph(3”)-Ib, aph(6)-Id, armA and aph(3’)-Ia), phenicoles (e.g., catB8), tetracyclines (e.g., tet.B and tet.39), sulfonamides (e.g., sul.1 and sul.2), macrolides and lincosamide (e.g., mph.E, msr.E and abaF). MLST and core genome MLST (cgMLST) showed an extreme diversity among the strains. Several strains isolated from different countries clustered together by cgMLST; however, different clusters shared the same ST. Developing an action plan on AMR, increasing awareness and prohibiting the selling of antibiotics without prescription must be mandatory for this region. Such efforts are critical for enforcing targeted policies on the rational use of carbapenem compounds and controlling AMR dissemination and emergence in general. Full article
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