ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Antimicrobials, Resistance and Chemotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1567913
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovation in Tackling the Global Challenge of Eradicating Antibiotic-Resistant MicroorganismsView all 13 articles
Detecting Plasmid-Mediated Dissemination of blaKPC-3 and blaOXA-48-like Genes in Enterobacterales in Finnish Healthcare Organizations Through Hybrid Genome Assembly
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland
- 2Public Health Unit, Department of Microbiology, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Helsinki, Finland, Helsinki, Finland
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The spread of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales (CPE) is a global concern. While most CPE outbreaks are due to clonal spread, recent findings highlight the transmission of carbapenemase genecarrying plasmids across various bacterial species, exacerbated by extensive antibiotic use in hospitals. This study aimed to identify plasmid-mediated horizontal transfer of carbapenemase genes among Enterobacterales from patient samples and hospital environment samples in three healthcare organizations in Finland. Using hybrid assembly of short and long reads, we could assemble genome completely and compare the plasmids harboring the blaKPC-3 and blaOXA-48-like genes. Our findings reveal indications of inter-and intraspecies plasmid-mediated gene transfer of blaKPC-3 and blaOXA-48like, emphasizing the role of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in outbreaks. The study underscores the need for comprehensive infection control and surveillance beyond specific species to prevent the spread of antimicrobial resistance genes. These results suggest that expanding outbreak investigations to an interspecies level could be beneficial.
Keywords: hybrid assembly, horizontal plasmid-mediated gene transfer, outbreak, Molecular Epidemiology, Plasmid, CPE, whole genome sequencing
Received: 28 Jan 2025; Accepted: 15 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Piispa, Vainio, Halkilahti, Lyytikäinen and Räisänen. 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: Meeri Piispa, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, 00014, Uusimaa, Finland
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