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Updated: May 7, 2026
Testing the Role of Multicopy Plasmids in the Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance
Published on: May 2, 2018
KPC-2-encoding plasmids from Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae in Taiwan
Ying-Tsong Chen1, Jung-Chung Lin, Chang-Phone Fung
1Institute of Molecular and Genomic Medicine, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan.
Objectives:
Two plasmids carrying bla(KPC-2) isolated from carbapenem-resistant Escherichia coli (CR-EC) and carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CR-KP), respectively, were completely sequenced. The CR-KP strain was selected from an outbreak in 2012, and the CR-EC strain was the first blaKPC-2-carrying E. coli identified in the same carbapenem resistance monitoring programme in Taiwan.
Methods:
Antimicrobial susceptibility tests, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and the conjugal transfer of plasmids were performed. Complete sequencing of the plasmids was performed using a shotgun approach.
Results:
The CR-EC and CR-KP strains in this study were determined to be ST410 and ST11, respectively, by MLST. From CR-EC, we identified a 145 kb conjugative plasmid that carries bla(KPC-2), bla(CMY-2), bla(CTX-M-3) and bla(TEM-1). The plasmid is a chimera composed of three regions related to IncI, IncN and RepFIC replicons. From CR-KP, we identified an 86.5 kb plasmid, pKPC-LK30, which carries bla(KPC-2) and bla(SHV-11). The plasmid is very similar to two bla(KPC-2)-carrying IncFII(K) plasmids, but lacks one of the replication origins and cannot conjugate.
Conclusions:
The differences in cross-species transferability of the two plasmids can be explained by genetic differences between their backbones and could have resulted in the confined bla(KPC-2)-carrying CR-KP outbreak in Taiwan. Plasmid pKPC-LKEc is the first bla(KPC-2)-carrying plasmid identified from CR-EC in Taiwan. With relatively high transferability it should be closely monitored.
