The Emergence of Bacterial “Hopeful Monsters”

ABSTRACT The global spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has largely been driven by the dissemination of successful lineages. A particularly important example is sequence type (ST) 258 of Klebsiella pneumoniae, a common cause of health care-associated infections. Representatives of this lineage c...

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Autores principales: Nicholas J. Croucher, Keith P. Klugman
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: American Society for Microbiology 2014
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/8fd208e356e34e7eb32ab9398ccbfa06
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Sumario:ABSTRACT The global spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has largely been driven by the dissemination of successful lineages. A particularly important example is sequence type (ST) 258 of Klebsiella pneumoniae, a common cause of health care-associated infections. Representatives of this lineage carry a variable array of plasmid-borne resistance genes, typically including a carbapenemase effective against the full range of clinically important β-lactams. In their recent mBio article, Chen et al. [mBio 5(3):e01355-14] described how ST258 emerged through “hybridization” between two other strains, with a second recombination resulting in the diversification of a key antigen. This commentary describes the findings in the context of other examples where saltational evolution has resulted in the sudden emergence of important pathogenic bacteria.