Taxonomic Identification of Different Species of the Genus Aeromonas by Whole-Genome Sequencing and Use of Their Species-Specific β-Lactamases as Phylogenetic Markers.
Some Aeromonas species, potentially pathogenic for humans, are known to express up to three different classes of chromosomal β-lactamases, which may become hyperproduced and cause treatment failure. The aim of this study was to assess the utility of these species-specific β-lactamase genes as phylogenetic markers using whole-genome sequencing data. Core-genome alignments were generated for 36 Aeromonas genomes from seven different species and scanned for antimicrobial resistance genes. Core-genome alignment confirmed the MALDI-TOF identification of most of the isolates and re-identified an A. hydrophila isolate as A. dhakensis. Three (B, C and D) of the four Ambler classes of β-lactamase genes were found in A. sobria, A. allosacharophila, A. hydrophila and A. dhakensis (blaCphA, blaAmpC and blaOXA). A. veronii only showed class-B- and class-D-like matches (blaCphA and blaOXA), whereas those for A. media, A. rivipollensis and A. caviae were class C and D (bla, blaMOX and blaOXA427). The phylogenetic tree derived from concatenated sequences of β-lactamase genes successfully clustered each species. Some isolates also had resistance to sulfonamides, quinolones and aminoglycosides. Whole-genome sequencing proved to be a useful method to identify Aeromonas at the species level, which led to the unexpected identification of A. dhakensis and A.rivipollensis and revealed the resistome of each isolate.
['Bertran|Xavier|X|', 'Rubio|Marc|M|0000-0002-4811-0642', 'Gómez|Laura|L|', 'Llovet|Teresa|T|', 'Muñoz|Carme|C|0000-0002-4150-8834', 'Navarro|Ferran|F|0000-0002-4302-2838', 'Miro|Elisenda|E|']
core-genome Aeromonas dhakensis Aeromonas rivipollensis FOX MOX beta-lactamases cephamicinases