In Vivo Acquisition of a Plasmid-Mediated blaKPC-2 Gene among Clonal Isolates of Serratia marcescens

摘要

Three patients admitted to a Greek hospital were infected with Serratia marcescens isolates that exhibited reduced susceptibility to carbapenems and harbored Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC) enzymes. In two of these cases, the patients were initially infected by carbapenem-susceptible S. marcescens isolates. Molecular typing and plasmid analysis suggested that all three patients had clonally indistinguishable isolates of S. marcescens that acquired a plasmid-mediated bla_KPC-2 gene during the hospitalization.