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Background: The combination aztreonam/avibactam is currently under Phase 3 trials for the treatment of serious infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria including those with MBLs.Objectives: To investigate the resistance mechanisms in Enterobacterales exhibiting aztreonam/avibactam MICs of ≥4 mg/L.Methods: Among 8787 Enterobacterales, 17 (0.2%) isolates exhibited an aztreonam/avibactam MIC of ≥4 mg/L. Isolates were sequenced and screened for β-lactamases. Sequences of porins, penicillin-binding protein 3 (PBP3) and expression levels of AmpC and AcrA were evaluated.Results: Eleven (11/4154 isolates; 0.26%) Escherichia coli, three (3/1981; 0.15%) Klebsiella pneumoniae and three (3/628; 0.5%) Enterobacter cloacae were identified. All E. coli showed either an 'YRIK' or 'YRIN' insertion in PBP3. In general, these isolates carried blaCMY and/or blaCTX-M variants, except for one isolate from Korea that also produced NDM-5 and one isolate from Turkey that produced OXA-48. Two DHA-1-producing K. pneumoniae overexpressed acrA and had a premature stop codon in either OmpK35 or OmpK36, whereas a third K. pneumoniae carried blaPER-2 and had a premature stop codon in OmpK35. All three E. cloacae expressed AmpC at levels ≥570-fold, but sequence analysis did not reveal known amino acid alterations associated with decreased avibactam binding or increased hydrolysis of β-lactams. Minor amino acid polymorphisms within OmpC, OmpF and PBP3 were noted among the E. cloacae.Conclusions: A small number of isolates (0.2%) met the inclusion criteria. E. coli showed altered PBP3 as the most relevant resistance mechanism, whereas K. pneumoniae had multiple resistance mechanisms. Further investigations are needed to clarify resistance in E. cloacae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented which discusses the in vitro activity of oritavancin and other lipoglycopeptides against vancomycin-susceptible and -resistant Enterococcus faecalis.

Over evolutionary time bacteriophages have developed unique proteins that arrest critical cellular processes to commit bacterial host metabolism to phage reproduction. Here, we apply this concept of phage-mediated bacterial growth inhibition to antibiotic discovery. We sequenced 26 Staphylococcus aureus phages and identified 31 novel polypeptide families that inhibited growth upon expression in S. aureus. The cellular targets for some of these polypeptides were identified and several were shown to be essential components of the host DNA replication and transcription machineries. The interaction between a prototypic pair, ORF104 of phage 77 and DnaI, the putative helicase loader of S. aureus, was then used to screen for small molecule inhibitors. Several compounds were subsequently found to inhibit both bacterial growth and DNA synthesis. Our results suggest that mimicking the growth-inhibitory effect of phage polypeptides by a chemical compound, coupled with the plethora of phages on earth, will yield new antibiotics to combat infectious diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this study, we assessed by broth microdilution the in vitro activity of oritavancin, a semisynthetic lipoglycopeptide currently under development, against selected meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream isolates (n =56) from Geneva University Hospital, Switzerland, displaying a wide range of vancomycin minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) (0.25–4μg/mL). The MRSA resistance phenotype was confirmed by broth microdilution (oxacillin MIC ≥4μg/mL) for all isolates; 89% and 100% of the tested isolates were also resistant to erythromycin and ciprofloxacin, respectively. For 53 MRSA isolates for which vancomycin MICs were in the susceptible range (0.5–2.0μg/mL), the oritavancin MICs ranged from 0.03μg/mL to 0.5μg/mL. For these 53 vancomycin-susceptible isolates, the cumulative distribution of oritavancin MICs was markedly different from those of vancomycin, teicoplanin, daptomycin and linezolid MICs, yielding an oritavancin MIC for 90% of the organisms (MIC90) (0.25μg/mL) that was four times lower than the MIC90 values (1μg/mL) of comparators. For three MRSA isolates with a vancomycin-intermediate phenotype (vancomycin MIC=4μg/mL), oritavancin MICs (0.5–1.0μg/mL) were 2–4-fold lower than vancomycin, teicoplanin or daptomycin MICs, but were equivalent to linezolid MICs. Pairwise comparison for each bloodstream isolate showed that oritavancin was ≥4-fold more active than vancomycin, teicoplanin and daptomycin, against 86%, 75% and 59% of all MRSA isolates, respectively. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]