Infections caused by antibiotic-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae are considered a major emerging problem in hospitals. K. pneumoniae behaves like an opportunistic bacterium, causing serious infections especially in the most fragile and long-term patients. In the nosocomial field, the greater burden of infections is due to the global dispersion of some high-risk clones of K. pneumoniae that spread successfully in Asia, the United States, Europe.
Genomics made possible to analyze and understand the evolutionary strategies of these successful clones and their adaptation to antimicrobial use, leading to the emergence of clinically relevant mechanisms of resistance to antibiotics. Since the third generation cephalosporin resistance in the early 2000s, K. pneumoniae has progressively evolved acquiring resistance to carbapenems, colistin, tigecycline and more recently fosfomycin and new drug-inhibitor combinations such as ceftazidime-avibactam in the last decade. Pan-resistant clones (defined as cells resistant to all classes of antibiotics) and treatable only with the newest formulation drugs have been reported in the world and could quickly represent a microbiological problem of strategic relevance in clinical settings.
08/04/2022 Alessandra Carattoli Dept. Molecular Medicine Sapienza University of Rome