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

作者：Wanyang Dong, Peng Qi, Xiaohua Tang, Tian Zhong, Shunan Lin, Ziling Zhi, Jingyi Ye, Bixia Yang, Ning Sun, Wenchang Yuan · 发表于：Infection and Drug Resistance · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.2147/idr.s411860 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Antimicrobial Resistance in Staphylococcus、Bacterial biofilms and quorum sensing、Bacterial Identification and Susceptibility Testing

Background: 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