Molecular epidemiology of aminoglycosides resistance on Klebsiella pneumonia in a hospital in China

To investigate the molecular epidemiology of aminoglycosides resistance among Klebsiella pneumonia in hospitals in China, the antibiotics resistance and the possession of extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) from 162 isolates were examined using Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion and PCR sequencing. Overall, 47.5% (77/162) of strains showed an ESBL phenotype. According to antibiotics resistance, ESBLs-positive K. pneumoniae showed significantly higher resistance to most antibiotics than ESBLs-negative strains (P<0.05). Moreover, 162 strains harboured aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes genes (AMEs) including aac (3)-II (n = 49), aac (6’)-Ib (n = 32), ant (3”)-I (n = 22) and ant (2”)-I (n = 7). Overall, 11.1% (18/162) and 6.2% (10/162) of isolates carried 16S rRNA methylase genes (armA and rmtB), in which the aminoglycoside MIC was more than 256 μg/ml. In conclusion, our study characterised aminoglycosides resistance among K. pneumoniae strains in China hospitals and revealed antibiotic resistance and the increased presence of AMEs and 16S rRNA methylase genes in K. pneumonia, enabling the prevalence of aminoglycosides resistance of K. pneumoniae to be tracked from patients.