Molecular mechanisms underlying the high mortality of hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae and its effective therapy development
Qi Xu, Miaomiao Xie, Xiaoxuan Liu, Heng Heng, Han Wang, Chen Yang, Edward Wai‐Chi Chan, Rong Zhang, Guan Yang, Sheng Chen
Abstract
Klebsiella pneumoniae ( Kp ) has become the most important bacterial pathogen causing high mortality rates in clinical patients due to the continuous evolution to several important variants such as carbapenem-resistant (CR- Kp ), hypervirulent (hv Kp ) and both CR and hv K. pneumoniae (CR-hv Kp ). The high mortality caused by clinical hv Kp is attributed to the non-response to antibiotic treatment. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of hv Kp -host interaction, especially the hv Kp -mediated immune responses, is necessary. Although Kp -host interaction has been studied for more than 20 years, most research showed that pro-inflammatory signaling was crucial to Kp clearance in the host, 1 without providing evidence to explain why hv Kp causes a high rate of death.