Epidemic diffusion of OXA-23-producing Acinetobacter baumannii isolates in Italy: results of the first cross-sectional countrywide survey

Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAb) is emerging worldwide as a public health problem in various settings. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of CRAb isolates in Italy and to characterize their resistance mechanisms and genetic relatedness. A countrywide cross-sectional survey was carried out at 25 centers in mid-2011. CRAb isolates were reported from all participating centers, with overall proportions of 45.7% and 22.2% among consecutive nonreplicate clinical isolates of A. baumannii from inpatients ( n = 508) and outpatients ( n = 63), respectively. Most of them were resistant to multiple antibiotics, whereas all remained susceptible to colistin, with MIC 50 and MIC 90 values of ≤0.5 mg/liter. The genes coding for carbapenemase production were identified by PCR and sequencing. OXA-23 enzymes (found in all centers) were by far the most common carbapenemases (81.7%), followed by OXA-58 oxacillinases (4.5%), which were found in 7 of the 25 centers. In 6 cases, CRAb isolates carried both bla OXA-23-like and bla OXA-58-like genes. A repetitive extragenic palindromic (REP)-PCR technique, multiplex PCRs for group identification, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) were used to determine the genetic relationships among representative isolates ( n = 55). Two different clonal lineages were identified, including a dominant clone of sequence type 2 (ST2) related to the international clone II (sequence group 1 [SG1], SG4, and SG5) and a clone of ST78 (SG6) previously described in Italy. Overall, our results demonstrate that OXA-23 enzymes have become the most prevalent carbapenemases and are now endemic in Italy. In addition, molecular typing profiles showed the presence of international and national clonal lineages in Italy.