Denmark14-230 clone as an increasing cause of pneumococcal infection in Portugal within a background of diverse serotype 19A lineages.
Pneumococci of serotype 19A are increasingly found to be the cause of infection in various geographic regions. We have characterized the serotype 19A isolates (n = 288) found among pneumococci responsible for infections (n = 1,925) and pneumococci recovered from asymptomatic carriers (n = 1,973) in Portugal between 2001 and 2006. We show that despite the existence of serotype 19A clones that have a greater potential to cause invasive disease or an enhanced colonization capacity, the lineage that is increasing as a cause of infection in Portugal is a multiresistant clone that is competent at both. The expanding Denmark(14)-230 clone found in Portugal is disseminated in other Mediterranean countries, where it is also increasingly responsible for invasive infections in both children and adults. The lineages driving the rise of serotype 19A infections in Asia and the United States (sequence type 320 [ST320] and ST199) are either absent or account for only a small proportion of isolates in Portugal. These data highlight the importance of locally circulating clones with the ability to compete in the nasopharyngeal niche in the emergence of the serotype 19A lineages which are an increasing cause of infection in various geographic regions.
Instituto de Microbiologia, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
Sandra I
SI
Aguiar
Francisco R
FR
Pinto
Sónia
S
Nunes
Isa
I
Serrano
José
J
Melo-Cristino
Raquel
R
Sá-Leão
Mário
M
Ramirez
Hermínia
H
de Lencastre
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D024901:Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D010641:Phenotype; D011008:Pneumococcal Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology*; D011174:Portugal / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012703:Serotyping; D013296:Streptococcus pneumoniae / Q000145:classification* / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D055815:Young Adult
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents