ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Infectious Agents and Disease
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1676614
This article is part of the Research TopicInfectious disease control in the microbial functional genomics eraView all 15 articles
Genomic characterization of Klebsiella pneumoniae clinical isolates from cancer patients: resistance profiles, virulence factors, and sequence typing
Provisionally accepted
- Ganzhou cancer hospital, Ganzhou, China
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Background: Klebsiella pneumoniae is a major opportunistic pathogen causing nosocomial infections, especially in immunocompromised patients like those with cancer. The molecular epidemiology of K. pneumoniae isolated from distinct body sites from cancer patients remains poorly understood. This study aimed to characterize the resistance genes, virulence factors, and sequence types of K. pneumoniae strains isolated from cancer patients. Methods: Whole-genome sequencing was performed on 105 K. pneumoniae isolates from patients with various cancers (lung, n=24; nasopharyngeal, n=12; liver, n=11; cervical, n=8; others, n=50). Antimicrobial resistance genes, virulence-associated genes, and multilocus sequence types (MLST) were analyzed. Virulence was assessed using a scoring system based on ybt, clb, and iuc genes. Results: Among the isolates, 41 were resistant to trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, primarily harboring sul1, sul2, and dfrA genes. Tobramycin and levofloxacin resistance were mainly associated with aadA16, aph(3'')-Ib, and AAC(6')-Ib-cr. Eight carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae (CRKP) isolates carried bla_KPC-1, bla_NDM-5, and bla_OXA-10. Common virulence genes included siderophores (entAB, ybt, iucABC), fimbriae (fimA, fimH), and ompA (100%). cervical cancer patient samples isolates had the lowest virulence scores, while lung and nasopharyngeal cancer patient samples isolates showed the highest. MLST identified 45 sequence types; ST23 predominated in lung and nasopharyngeal tumors patient , whereas ST45 was most frequent in cervical cancer patient samples . Phylogenetically, isolates from these four cancer types clustered predominantly (58.3–87.5%) within a specific clade. Conclusion: The K. pneumoniae isolates in this study demonstrate considerable diversity in their virulence genes, antimicrobial resistance genes, and sequence types. These findings underscore the importance of genomic surveillance to inform infection control and treatment strategies in high-risk oncology settings.
Keywords: Malignant tumor, Klebsiella pneumoniae, antibiotic resistance, Virulence gene, whole genome sequencing
Received: 31 Jul 2025; Accepted: 16 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 LIU, Liu, Zhou, Wang and Huang. 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: Gang Huang, huang567gang@163.com
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