Infection and Drug Resistance (Jun 2023)

Identification and Characterization of a Vancomycin Intermediate-Resistant Staphylococcus haemolyticus Isolated from Guangzhou, China

  • Dong W,
  • Peng Q,
  • Tang X,
  • Zhong T,
  • Lin S,
  • Zhi Z,
  • Ye J,
  • Yang B,
  • Sun N,
  • Yuan W

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 16
pp. 3639 – 3647

Abstract

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Wanyang Dong,1,* Qi Peng,1,* Xiaohua Tang,1,2,* Tian Zhong,1 Shunan Lin,1 Ziling Zhi,1 Jingyi Ye,1 Bixia Yang,1 Ning Sun,1,3 Wenchang Yuan1 1Guangzhou Key Laboratory for Clinical Rapid Diagnosis and Early Warning of Infectious Diseases, KingMed School of Laboratory Medicine, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510180, People’s Republic of China; 2Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Department of Clinical Laboratory, Guangzhou, 510150, People’s Republic of China; 3Guangzhou First People’s Hospital, School of Medicine, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510180, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Ning Sun; Wenchang Yuan, Email [email protected]; [email protected]: Staphylococcus haemolyticus is an opportunistic pathogen that belongs to coagulase-negative Staphylococci (CoNS). Increasing infection and multi-drug resistance cases caused by this strain have been reported and thus it poses a great health threat.Methods: The third-generation sequencing technology was performed on a S. haemolyticus SH-1 isolated from a clinical sample to analyze the drug resistance genes, which included vancomycin resistance related genes. In addition, antimicrobial susceptibility tests, transmission electron microscopy and Triton X-100 stimulated autolysis were conducted to understand its biological characteristics.Results: The study shows that this clinical isolate is a vancomycin intermediate-resistant strain. Genome comparison also revealed that WalK(N70K) and WalK(R280Q) mutations may contribute to the vancomycin resistant phenotype. Besides, S. haemolyticus SH-1 exhibit common features of thicker cell wall and decreased autolytic activity.Conclusion: S. haemolyticus SH-1 with WalKR mutations shows typical characteristics of vancomycin resistant strains. Combining the genome features and biological properties, our findings may provide important information for the understanding of the molecular mechanism of S. haemolyticus to vancomycin intermediate-resistance.Keywords: Staphylococcus haemolyticus, drug resistance gene, vancomycin intermediate-resistance, whole genome sequencing

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