Klebsiella pneumoniae as a key trafficker of drug resistance genes from environmental to clinically important bacteria
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Microbiology, Infectious Diseases
- Keywords
- Klebsiella pneumoniae, horizontal gene transfer, antimicrobial resistance, microbial ecology, plasmids
- Copyright
- © 2018 Wyres et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Klebsiella pneumoniae as a key trafficker of drug resistance genes from environmental to clinically important bacteria. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26852v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26852v1
Abstract
Klebsiella pneumoniae is an opportunistic bacterial pathogen known for its high frequency and diversity of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes. In addition to being a significant clinical problem in its own right, K. pneumoniae is the species within which several new AMR genes were first discovered before spreading to other pathogens (e.g. carbapenem-resistance genes KPC, OXA-48 and NDM-1). Whilst K. pneumoniae’s contribution to the overall AMR crisis is impossible to quantify, current evidence suggests it has a wider ecological distribution, significantly more varied DNA composition, greater AMR gene diversity and a higher plasmid burden than other Gram negative opportunists. Hence we propose it plays a key role in disseminating AMR genes from environmental microbes to clinically important pathogens.
Author Comment
The current version (V1) of this article has been submitted for peer-reviewed publication.