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- Cole, Michelle J., et al.
(author)
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Genetic diversity of bla(TEM) alleles, antimicrobial susceptibility and molecular epidemiological characteristics of penicillinase-producing Neisseria gonorrhoeae from England and Wales
- 2015
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In: Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. - : Oxford University Press. - 0305-7453 .- 1460-2091. ; 70:12, s. 3238-3243
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the genetic diversity of bla(TEM) alleles, antimicrobial susceptibility and molecular epidemiological characteristics of penicillinase-producing Neisseria gonorrhoeae (PPNG) isolates collected in 2012 from England and Wales.Methods: PPNG isolates were from the 2012 Gonococcal Resistance to Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme (GRASP). Their susceptibility to seven antimicrobials was determined using agar dilution methodology. beta-Lactamase production was detected using a nitrocefin test. beta-Lactamase plasmid types were determined and bla(TEM) genes were sequenced. Isolates were also typed by N. gonorrhoeae multi-antigen sequence typing (NG-MAST).Results: Seventy-three PPNG isolates were identified in the 2012 GRASP collection (4.6%, 73/1603). Three different bla(TEM) alleles were identified, encoding three TEM amino acid sequences: TEM-1 (53%), TEM-1 with a P14S substitution (19%) and TEM-135 (27%). The bla(TEM-135) allele was present in nine different NG-MAST types and was found mostly on Asian (60%) and Toronto/Rio (35%) plasmids. By contrast, most TEM-1-encoding plasmids were African (98%). All the TEM-135 isolates displayed high-level ciprofloxacin and tetracycline resistance.Conclusions: The high proportion of bla(TEM-135) alleles (27%) demonstrates that this variant is circulating within several gonococcal lineages. Only a single specific mutation near the beta-lactamase active site could result in TEM-135 evolving into an ESBL. This is concerning particularly because the TEM-135 isolates were associated with high-level ciprofloxacin and tetracycline resistance. It is encouraging that no further TEM alleles were detected in this gonococcal population; however, vigilance is vital as an ESBL in N. gonorrhoeae would render the last remaining option for monotherapy, ceftriaxone, useless.
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| 2. |
- Cole, Michelle J., et al.
(author)
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Ten years of external quality assessment (EQA) of Neisseria gonorrhoeae antimicrobial susceptibility testing in Europe elucidate high reliability of data
- 2019
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In: BMC Infectious Diseases. - : BioMed Central. - 1471-2334. ; 19:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Confidence in any diagnostic and antimicrobial susceptibility testing data is provided by appropriate and regular quality assurance (QA) procedures. In Europe, the European Gonococcal Antimicrobial Susceptibility Programme (Euro-GASP) has been monitoring the antimicrobial susceptibility in Neisseria gonorrhoeae since 2004. Euro-GASP includes an external quality assessment (EQA) scheme as an essential component for a quality-assured laboratory-based surveillance programme. Participation in the EQA scheme enables any problems with the performed antimicrobial susceptibility testing to be identified and addressed, feeds into the curricula of laboratory training organised by the Euro-GASP network, and assesses the capacity of individual laboratories to detect emerging new, rare and increasing antimicrobial resistance phenotypes. Participant performance in the Euro-GASP EQA scheme over a 10 year period (2007 to 2016, no EQA in 2013) was evaluated.METHODS: Antimicrobial susceptibility category and MIC results from the first 5 years (2007-2011) of the Euro-GASP EQA were compared with the latter 5 years (2012-2016). These time periods were selected to assess the impact of the 2012 European Union case definitions for the reporting of antimicrobial susceptibility.RESULTS: dilutions of the modal MIC, respectively. The most common method used was Etest on GC agar base. There was a shift to using breakpoints published by the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) in the latter 5 years, however overall impact on the validity of results was limited, as the percentage categorical agreement and MIC concordance changed very little between the two five-year periods.CONCLUSIONS: The high level of comparability of results in this EQA scheme indicates that high quality data are produced by the Euro-GASP participants and gives confidence in susceptibility and resistance data generated by laboratories performing decentralised testing.
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