Ann Clin Microbiol.  2017 Sep;20(3):67-73. 10.5145/ACM.2017.20.3.67.

Comparison of Multilocus Sequence Typing Change Patterns of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus faecium from 2015 to 2017

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Medical Sciences, The Graduate School, Ajou University, Suwon, Korea.
  • 2Undergraduate Statistics, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.
  • 3Department of Laboratory Medicine, Ajou University College of Medicine, Suwon, Korea. weegyo@ajou.ac.kr

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) is useful in determining the long-term evolutionary process and minimizes differences in experimental results across individuals and laboratories. It is also useful in determining evolutionary origins and backgrounds of bacterial species. This study carries out MLST analysis on VanA-type vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium isolated from patient specimens in a single university hospital over nine years in order to observe changes in genetic evolution over time.
METHODS
During the years from 2007 to 2015, 44 clinical isolates of vanA-containing E. faecium were collected from Ajou University Hospital in Korea. Species were identified by the VitekII system (bio-Merieux, USA), and antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed by disk diffusion and E-test according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines. To determine genetic relatedness, matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF M/S) was employed. To characterize clonal diversity, MLST analysis was used.
RESULTS
All isolates were highly resistant to ampicillin, ciprofloxacin, and vancomycin but showed variable levels of resistance to teicoplanin. The 44 clinical isolates were genetically unrelated according to MALDI-TOF M/S analysis. MLST showed that the clinical isolates harbored 6 sequence types (ST), with ST17 (n=19) being the most common, followed by ST78 (n=13), ST192 (n=6), ST64 (n=4), ST262 (n=1), and ST414 (n=1).
CONCLUSION
The MLST analysis showed that the sequence types of most isolates belonged to clonal complex 17 This is consistent with outbreaks in hospitals. We had single observations for ST262 and ST414, suggesting that they were random occurrences. MLST can be useful for speculating the genetic evolution of VanA-containing E. faecium isolates.

Keyword

MALDI-TOF M/S; MLST; ST

MeSH Terms

Ampicillin
Ciprofloxacin
Diffusion
Disease Outbreaks
Enterococcus faecium*
Enterococcus*
Evolution, Molecular
Humans
Korea
Mass Spectrometry
Multilocus Sequence Typing*
Teicoplanin
Vancomycin
Ampicillin
Ciprofloxacin
Teicoplanin
Vancomycin

Figure

  • Fig. 1 Minimum spanning tree from 44 strains after MLST analysis. Thick solid lines indicate the single locus variation. Thin solid lines indicate the double locus variation.


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