Origin in Acinetobacter guillouiae and Dissemination of the Aminoglycoside-Modifying Enzyme Aph(3′)-VI
ABSTRACTThe amikacin resistance geneaphA6was first detected in the nosocomial pathogenAcinetobacter baumanniiand subsequently in other genera. Analysis of 133 whole-genome sequences covering the taxonomic diversity ofAcinetobacterspp. detectedaphA6in the chromosome of 2 isolates ofA. guillouiae, which is an environmental species, 1 of 8A. parvusisolates, and 5 of 34A. baumanniiisolates. The gene was also present in 29 out of 36A. guillouiaeisolates screened by PCR, indicating that it is ancestral to this species. ThePnativepromoter foraphA6inA. guillouiaeandA. parvuswas replaced inA. baumanniibyPaphA6, which was generated by use of the insertion sequence ISAba125, which brought a −35 sequence. Study of promoter strength inEscherichia coliandA. baumanniiindicated thatPaphA6was four times more potent thanPnative. There was a good correlation between aminoglycoside MICs andaphA6transcription inA. guillouiaeisolates that remained susceptible to amikacin. The marked topology differences of the phylogenetic trees ofaphA6and of the hosts strongly support its recent direct transfer withinAcinetobacterspp. and also to evolutionarily remote bacterial genera. Concomitant expression ofaphA6must have occurred because, contrary to the donors, it can confer resistance to the new hosts. Mobilization and expression ofaphA6via composite transposons and the upstream IS-generating hybridPaphA6, followed by conjugation, seems the most plausible mechanism. This is in agreement with the observation that, in the recipients,aphA6is carried by conjugative plasmids and flanked by IS that are common inAcinetobacterspp. Our data indicate that resistance genes can also be found in susceptible environmental bacteria.IMPORTANCEWe speculated that theaphA6gene for an enzyme that confers resistance to amikacin, the most active aminoglycoside for the treatment of nosocomial infections due toAcinetobacterspp., originated in this genus before disseminating to phylogenetically distant genera pathogenic for humans. Using a combination of whole-genome sequencing of a collection ofAcinetobacterspp. covering the breadth of the known taxonomic diversity of the genus, gene cloning, detailed promoter analysis, study of heterologous gene expression, and comparative analysis of the phylogenetic trees ofaphA6and of the bacterial hosts, we found thataphA6originated inAcinetobacter guillouiae, an amikacin-susceptible environmental species. The gene conferred, upon mobilization, high-level resistance to the new hosts. This work stresses that nonpathogenic bacteria can act as reservoirs of resistance determinants, and it provides an example of the use of a genomic library to study the origin and dissemination of an antibiotic resistance gene to human pathogens.