Lineage, Antimicrobial Resistance and Virulence of Citrobacter spp

• Published in: Pathogens (Basel) 2020-03, Vol.9 (3), p.195
• Main Authors: Liu, Liyun, Qin, Liyun, Hao, Shuai, Lan, Ruiting, Xu, Baohong, Guo, Yumei, Jiang, Ruiping, Sun, Hui, Chen, Xiaoping, Lv, Xinchao, Xu, Jianguo, Zhao, Chuan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: adhesion; citrobacter; cytotoxicity; multidrug resistance; sequence types
• ISSN: 2076-0817; 2076-0817
• DOI: 10.3390/pathogens9030195

spp are opportunistic human pathogens which can cause nosocomial infections, sporadic infections and outbreaks. In order to determine the genetic diversity, virulence properties and antimicrobial resistance profiles of spp , 128 Citrobacter isolates obtained from human diarrheal patients, foods and environment were assessed by multilocus sequence typing (MLST), antimicrobial susceptibility testing and adhesion and cytotoxicity testing to HEp-2 cells. The 128 Citrobacter isolates were typed into 123 sequence types (STs) of which 101 were novel STs, and these STs were divided into five lineages. Lineages I and II contained isolates; Lineage III contained all isolates, while Lineage IV and V contained isolates. Lineages II and V contained more adhesive and cytotoxic isolates than Lineages I, III, and IV. Fifty-one of the 128 isolates were found to be multidrug-resistant (MDR, ≥3) and mainly distributed in Lineages I, II, and III. The prevalence of quinolone resistance varied with Lineage III ( ) having the highest proportion of resistant isolates (52.6%), followed by Lineage I ( ) with 23.7%. Seven variants, including two new alleles (qnrB93 and qnrB94) were found with Lineage I being the main reservoir. In summary, highly cytotoxic MDR isolates from diarrheal patients may increase the risk of severe disease.