Corynebacterium Striatum Strains
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nylacetic acid assimilation (2); it was reconfi rmed by se- Clonal quencing the internal fragment of the 16S rRNA gene (3). The American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) 6940 C. Multidrug-Resistant striatum strain was included as phenotypic and molecular control. All strains were stored at –80°C until use. Corynebacterium MICs were determined by using microdilution in cation-adjusted Mueller-Hinton broth in accordance with striatum Strains, guidelines of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Insti- Italy tute (CLSI) (4). The following antimicrobial drugs were tested: tigecycline and piperacillin/tazobactam, oxacillin, Floriana Campanile, Edoardo Carretto, gentamicin, kanamycin, levofl oxacin, erythromycin, clin- Daniela Barbarini, Annalisa Grigis, damycin, piperacillin, vancomycin, teicoplanin, tetracy- Marco Falcone, Antonio Goglio, Mario Venditti, cline, moxifl oxacin, imipenem, meropenem, quinupristin/ and Stefania Stefani dalfopristin, linezolid, and daptomycin. Etest strips (AB- BIODISK, Solna, Sweden) were used for vancomycin, We assessed the clinical relevance and performed teicoplanin, linezolid, and daptomycin. Daptomycin Etests molecular characterization of 36 multidrug-resistant strains of Corynebacterium striatum. Pulsed-fi eld gel electropho- were performed by using Muller-Hinton agar (Oxoid, Mi- resis confi rmed a single clone, possessing erm(X), tetA/B, lan, Italy), supplemented to a fi nal concentration of 50 cmxA/B, and aphA1 genes, but few related subclones. This mg/L calcium. strain is emerging as a pathogen in Italy. In the absence of approved breakpoints for Coryne- bacterium spp., we used those for α-hemolytic streptococci of the viridans group. Results were read after incubation solation of Corynebacterium spp. as the only organism at 37°C for 18–24 h. Susceptibility to daptomycin was Ifrom clinical specimens from patients, mostly with vary- defi ned as MIC <1 mg/L (5); CLSI guideline MIC break- ing degrees of immunocompromisation and severe infec- points were used for all other drugs tested (4). tions, is increasing in Italy. Therefore, we evaluated the To further characterize the C. striatum isolates, we used microbiologic characteristics, resistance profi les, and simi- 2 DNA fi ngerprinting techniques: automated ribotyping larities among genomes of multidrug-resistant (MDR) C. (RiboPrinter Microbial Characterization System; DuPont striatum strains. Qualicon, Wilmington, DE, USA) with EcoRI as restric- tion enzyme and pulsed-fi eld gel electrophoresis (PFGE) The Study macrorestriction analysis with 2 enzymes (XbaI and SwaI; We evaluated 36 strains of MDR C. striatum, isolat- New England Biolabs, Beverly, MA, USA). We had used ed from 3 hospitals in Italy during 2005–2007. Fourteen 4 enzymes (XbaI, SwaI, Sfi I, and PacI) to test 10 random strains were from bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fl uid, 3 strains, but because XbaI and SwaI enzyme-restriction pat- from blood, 7 from central venous catheter tips, 5 from tra- terns gave a better resolution for low and high molecular cheal aspirates, 4 from wound specimens, 1 from BAL and weight fragments, respectively, we used only these 2 re- pleural fl uid, 1 from urine, and 1 from a lung biopsy speci- striction enzymes to type all 36 strains. men. To assess the clinical relevance of these strains, we Whole genomic DNA chromosomal extraction, mac- used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2004 rorestriction digestion, and PFGE (CHEF-DR II apparatus; defi nition for nosocomial infections (www.cdc.gov/ncidod/ Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA, USA) were performed as previous- dhqp/nnis_pubs.html) (1) and tracked antimicrobial drug– ly reported (6). Macrorestriction fragments were separated resistance determinants. on 1% (wt/vol) ultrapure agarose gels (Sigma Aldrich, St. We identifi ed all strains as putative C. striatum by us- Louis, MO, USA) at 6 V/cm, for 21 h at 14°C with pulse ing the commercial system API 20 Coryne (bioMérieux, times of 0.1–5 s, to separate XbaI fragments, and for 23 Marcy l’Etoile, France). C. striatum was differentiated h with pulse times of 1–70 s, to separate SwaI fragments. from C. amycolatum by supplementary tests, i.e., tyrosine Lambda DNA concatemers (New England BioLabs) were hydrolysis, N-acetylglucosamine assimilation, and phe- used as molecular size markers. Similarities among mac- Author affi liations: University of Catania, Catania, Italy (F. Campa- rorestriction patterns were identifi ed according to estab- nile, S. Stefani); Policlinico “San Matteo,” Pavia, Italy (E. Carretto, lished criteria (7). D. Barbarini); Ospedali Riuniti, Bergamo, Italy (A. Grigis, A. Goglio); The sequence of pTP10 (GenBank accession no. and University Roma La Sapienza, Rome, Italy (M. Falcone, M. AF024666) (8) was used to design the primers for erm(X), Venditti) tetA and tetB, cmx, aphA1, and repB genes. The VectorN- DOI: 10.3201/eid1501.080804 TI program (Invitrogen, www.invitrogen.com) was used Emerging Infectious Diseases • www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 15, No. 1, January 2009 75 DISPATCHES for this purpose. The presence of pTP10 was confi rmed Analyses of SwaI digestion patterns showed that of the fi rst by amplifi cation and sequencing of the resistance 36 strains, only 1 clone had 3 different subtypes (30 strains determinants and the replication gene (repB) and then by subtype a1, 4 strains a2, and 2 strains a3). Macrorestriction XbaI and SwaI PFGE hybridizations, performed with the analysis with XbaI showed almost comparable results (27 specifi c probes (erm(X), tetAB, cmx, and aphA1), follow- strains A1, 7 strains A2, and 2 strains A3) (Figure). This ing a protocol previously described (9). The PCR amplifi - genotyping method and the enzymes used were defi ned as cations were performed in a Techne TC412 thermal cycler appropriate, comparing PFGE patterns of our clinical iso- (Barloworld Scientifi c, Staffordshire, UK). All primers and lates with C. striatum ATCC 6940 type strain, which was the related probe regions used in hybridization experiments different with respect to the epidemic strains. This result are shown in Table 1. demonstrates that single MDR C. striatum clones had been All C. striatum isolates were recovered from hospital- selected and were circulating in the 3 hospitals. ized patients who had undergone surgery or been admitted Further, the molecular characterization of some of to intensive care units (Table 2). We documented 19 cases the resistance genes in the 36 C. striatum isolates demon- of infections and discarded 17 as contaminants. The isolates strated the presence of erm(X), codifying for the resistance that were considered causes of infections were responsible to erythromycin and clindamycin; tetA, and tetB, codify- for 8 cases of ventilator-associated pneumonia (including 1 ing for the resistance to tetracycline, oxytetracycline, and with associated pleural empyema), 2 cases of pneumonia, 1 oxacillin; and cmx and aphA1, responsible for resistance case of catheter-related sepsis, 2 cases of ventilator-associ- to aminoglycosides and chloramphenicol, respectively. ated tracheobronchitis, and 6 cases of wound infections. The presence of pTP10 carrying all these determinants was The 36 strains showed an MDR phenotype, including confi rmed by amplifi cation and sequencing of these genes resistance to >3 classes of drugs; MICs required to inhibit and the replication gene of the plasmid, together with hy- growth of 90% (MIC90) were penicillins >256 mg/L, car- bridization experiments demonstrating that all resistance bapenems >256 mg/L, gentamicin 32 mg/L, levofl oxacin determinants were localized in the same hybridization 256 mg/L, tetracycline >256 mg/L, lincosamides >256 band generated by each probe onto PFGEXbaI (≈15 kb) and mg/L, and erythromycin 32 mg/L. C. striatum strains were PFGESwaI (≈280 kb) membranes (Figure). susceptible to only the most recent drugs used for treatment of infections with gram-positive organisms, such as glyco- Conclusions peptides and tigecycline (MIC90 1 mg/L), quinupristin/dal- We report isolation of MDR C. striatum from clini- fopristin and daptomycin (MIC90 0.25 mg/L), and linezolid cal specimens responsible for cases of pneumonia, cath- (MIC90 2 mg/L). A discrepancy was found when suscepti- eter-related bacteremia, and wound infections. Infections bility testing using a disk-diffusion method was performed sustained from this species are strongly associated with on different strains; the inhibition zone of erythromycin devices, not only tubes or catheters (91%) but also sternal was always in the intermediate range, even if MICs for this surgical wound wires. drug were in the low-resistance range. The MDR phenotype of these strains was immediately Ribotyping gave a unique profi le for all strains in observed and was responsible for the alarm that led to the this study. PFGE enabled us to discriminate the right subsequent in-depth examination of these strains. Their number of macrorestriction fragments (5,10,11) for pat- clonal nature, as demonstrated in our study, is of particu- tern comparison. lar concern. Further, the MDR phenotype correlated to the Table 1. Primer conditions, PCR products, and related sequences confirmed by BLAST analysis of 36 strains of multidrug-resistant Corynebacterium striatum, Italy, 2005–2007* Temperature, BLAST from–to, Primer Related resistance Sequence (5ƍ o 3ƍ) °C Size, bp bp ermX up Erythromycin and AACCATGATTGTGTTTCTGAACG 57 566 2,285–2,850 ermX down clindamycin ACCAGGAAGCGGTGCCCT tetA up Tetracycline, oxytetracycline, TTAGCGTTCGGCGACCTGG 58 1,829 5,496–7,324 tetB down and oxacillin AACTGGGTGCCTTCAGGGTC