Dissemination of NDM-1-Producing Enterobacteriaceae Mediated by the IncX3-Type Plasmid

The emergence and spread of NDM-1-producing Enterobacteriaceae have resulted in a worldwide public health risk that has affected some provinces of China. China is an exceptionally large country, and there is a crucial need to investigate the epidemic of blaNDM-1-positive Enterobacteriaceae in our province. A total of 186 carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae isolates (CRE) were collected in a grade-3 hospital in Zhejiang province. Carbapenem-resistant genes, including blaKPC, blaIMP, blaVIM, blaOXA-48 and blaNDM-1 were screened and sequenced. Ninety isolates were identified as harboring the blaKPC-2 genes, and five blaNDM-1-positive isolates were uncovered. XbaI-PFGE revealed that three blaNDM-1-positive K. pneumoniae isolates belonged to two different clones. S1-PFGE and southern blot suggested that the blaNDM-1 genes were located on IncX3-type plasmids with two different sizes ranging from 33.3 to 54.7 kb (n=4) and 104.5 to 138.9 kb (n=1), respectively, all of which could easily transfer to Escherichia coli by conjugation and electrotransformation. The high-throughput sequencing of two plasmids was performed leading to the identification of a smaller 54-kb plasmid, which had high sequence similarity with a previously reported pCFNDM-CN, and a larger plasmid in which only a 7.8-kb sequence of a common gene environment around blaNDM-1 (blaNDM-1-trpF- dsbC-cutA1-groEL-ΔInsE,) was detected. PCR mapping and sequencing demonstrated that four smaller blaNDM-1 plasmids contained a common gene environment around blaNDM-1 (IS5-blaNDM-1-trpF- dsbC-cutA1-groEL). We monitored the CRE epidemic in our hospital and determined that KPC-2 carbapenemase was a major risk to patient health and the IncX3-type plasmid played a vital role in the spread of the blaNDM-1 gene among the CRE.