Co-evolutionary adaptations of <i>Acinetobacter baumannii</i> and a clinical carbapenemase-encoding plasmid during carbapenem exposure.

ABSTRACT: OXA-23 is the predominant carbapenemase in carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii. The co-evolutionary dynamics of A. baumannii and OXA-23-encoding plasmids are poorly understood. Here, we transformed A. baumannii ATCC 17978 with pAZJ221, a bla _OXA-23-containing plasmid from clinical A. baumannii isolate A221, and subjected the transformant to experimental evolution in the presence of a sub-inhibitory concentration of imipenem for nearly 400 generations. We used population sequencing to track genetic changes at six time points and evaluated phenotypic changes. Increased fitness of evolving populations, temporary duplication of bla _OXA-23 in pAZJ221, interfering allele dynamics, and chromosomal locus-level parallelism wer

SUBMITTER: Zhang L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9309461 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature