Co-occurrence of Plasmid-Mediated Tigecycline and Carbapenem Resistance in Acinetobacter spp. from Waterfowls and Their Neighboring Environment

Tigecycline serves as one of the antibiotics of last resort to treat multidrug-resistant (including carbapenem-resistant) pathogens. However, the recently emerged plasmid-mediated tigecycline resistance mechanism, Tet(X), challenges the clinical efficacy of this class of antibiotics. In this study, we detected 180 tet(X)-harboring Acinetobacter isolates (8.9%, n = 180) from 2,018 samples collected from avian farms and adjacent environments in China. Eighteen tet(X)-harboring isolates (10.0%) were found to cocarry the carbapenemase gene bla(NDM-1), mostly from waterfowl samples (94.4%, 17/18). Interestingly, among six Acinetobacter strains, tet(X) and bla(NDM-1) were found to colocalize on the same plasmids. Moreover, whole-genome sequencing (WGS) revealed a novel orthologue of tet(X) in the six isolates coharboring tet(X) and bla(NDM-1). Inverse PCR suggested that the two tet(X) genes form a single transposable unit and may be cotransferred. Sequence comparison between six tet(X)- and bla(NDM-1)-coharboring plasmids showed that they shared a highly homologous plasmid backbone even though they were isolated from different Acinetobacter species (three from Acinetobacter indicus, two from Acinetobacter schindleri, and one from Acinetobacter lwoffii) from various sources and from different geological regions, suggesting the horizontal genetic transfer of a common tet(X)- and bla(NDM-1)-coharboring plasmid among Acinetobacter species in China. Emergence and spread of such plasmids and strains are of great clinical concern, and measures must be implemented to avoid their dissemination.