Molecular characterization of integrons in epidemiologically unrelated clinical isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii from Italian hospitals reveals a limited diversity of gene cassette arrays.
Integron carriage by 36 epidemiologically unrelated Acinetobacter baumannii isolates collected over an 11-year period from patients in six different Italian hospitals was investigated. Sixteen type 1 integron-positive isolates (44%) were found, 13 of which carried the same array of cassettes, i.e., aacC1, orfX, orfX', and aadA1a. As ribotype analysis of the isolates demonstrated a notable genetic diversity, horizontal transfer of the entire integron structure or ancient acquisition was hypothesized.
Gombac
Francesca
F
Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Sezione di Microbiologia, Università di Trieste, I-34127 Trieste, Italy.
Riccio
Maria Letizia
ML
Rossolini
Gian Maria
GM
Lagatolla
Cristina
C
Tonin
Enrico
E
Monti-Bragadin
Carlo
C
Lavenia
Annamaria
A
Dolzani
Lucilla
L
D000151:Acinetobacter Infections / Q000382:microbiology*; D040981:Acinetobacter baumannii / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics*; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D005798:Genes, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D032023:Integrons / Q000235:genetics*; D007558:Italy; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction