1. Molecular Epidemiology of Mycobacterium abscessus Isolates Recovered from German Cystic Fibrosis Patients
- Author
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Nils Wetzstein, Margo Diricks, Thomas A. Kohl, Thomas A. Wichelhaus, Sönke Andres, Laura Paulowski, Carsten Schwarz, Astrid Lewin, Jan Kehrmann, Barbara C. Kahl, Karl Dichtl, Christian Hügel, Olaf Eickmeier, Christina Smaczny, Annika Schmidt, Stefan Zimmermann, Lutz Nährlich, Sylvia Hafkemeyer, Stefan Niemann, Florian P. Maurer, and Michael Hogardt
- Subjects
Mycobacterium abscessus ,cystic fibrosis ,whole-genome sequencing ,dominant circulating clones ,hospital transmission ,German CF registry ,Microbiology ,QR1-502 - Abstract
ABSTRACT Infections due to Mycobacterium abscessus are a major cause of mortality and morbidity in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Furthermore, M. abscessus has been suspected to be involved in person-to-person transmissions. In 2016, dominant global clonal complexes (DCCs) that occur worldwide among CF patients have been described. To elucidate the epidemiological situation of M. abscessus among CF patients in Germany and to put these data into a global context, we performed whole-genome sequencing of a set of 154 M. abscessus isolates from 123 German patients treated in 14 CF centers. We used MTBseq pipeline to identify clusters of closely related isolates and correlate those with global findings. Genotypic drug susceptibility for macrolides and aminoglycosides was assessed by characterization of the erm(41), rrl, and rrs genes. By this approach, we could identify representatives of all major DCCs (Absc 1, Absc 2, and Mass 1) in our cohort. Intrapersonal isolates showed higher genetic relatedness than interpersonal isolates (median 3 SNPs versus 16 SNPs; P
- Published
- 2022
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