Genetic and Phenotypic Characterization of Multidrug-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae from Liver Abscess
Changrui Qian, Siqin Zhang, Mengxin Xu, Weiliang Zeng, Lijiang Chen, Yining Zhao, Cui Zhou, Ying Zhang, Jianming Cao, Tieli Zhou
Abstract
Pyogenic liver abscess is a potentially life-threatening suppurative infection of hepatic parenchyma. K. pneumoniae has emerged as a predominant pathogen of pyogenic liver abscess. Liver abscess-causing K. pneumoniae is generally considered hypervirulent K. pneumoniae and is susceptible to most antibiotics. Recently, convergence of multidrug resistant and hypervirulence phenotypes in liver abscess-causing K. pneumoniae was emerging and poses a major threat to public health. However, relatively little information is available on liver abscess-causing multidrug-resistant hypervirulent K. pneumoniae. In this study, we characterized phenotype and genotype of virulence and resistance of 18 multidrug-resistant hypervirulent liver abscess-causing K. pneumoniae strains collected from 395 pyogenic liver abscess cases in a tertiary teaching hospital over a 5-year period to enable in-depth understanding of this pathogen.