SGM Journals
Research Article

Erythromycin resistance in invasive serotype 14 pneumococci is highly related to clonal type

Clarke, S C, Scott, K J, McChlery, S M

Journal of Medical Microbiology 2004; 53(11):1101 · https://doi.org/10.1099/jmm.0.45737-0

View at publisher PubMed

Abstract

Streptococcus pneumoniae is responsible for invasive pneumococcal diseases (IPDs) such as bacteraemia and meningitis. It remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, especially in the young and old (Mohan & Heath, 2001; Obaro & Adegbola, 2002). New pneumococcal polysaccharide conjugate (Pnc) vaccines have been developed, one of which has gained licensure in both Europe and the USA, and the need for improved epidemiological data is now evident (Spratt & Greenwood, 2000). Increasing amounts of information are becoming available relating to the molecular relationships between different pneumococcal clones (Brueggemann et al., 2003; Enright & Spratt, 1998; Gertz et al., 2003; McGee et al., 2001; Sa-Leao et al., 2001). Discriminating between different serotypes of pneumococci provides limited information on individual clones causing IPDs, as a single serotype typically includes a number of genetically divergent clones due to horizontal transfer of the capsular genes into new lineages (Brueggemann et al., 2003).

Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) is an unambiguous nucleotide-sequence-based typing method for characterizing isolates of a bacterial species using the sequences of internal fragments of seven housekeeping genes (Maiden et al., 1998). MLST provides molecular typing data that are highly discriminatory and electronically portable between laboratories, and has been adapted for S. pneumoniae (Enright & Spratt, 1998; Enright et al., 2000; Jefferies et al., 2003). Serotype 14 is the most common invasive pneumococcal serotype in the UK and many isolates are erythromycin-resistant, presumably because they are the England 14-9 clone (Fotopoulou et al., 2003; Kyaw et al., 2000; McGee et al., 2001). The aim of this study was therefore to characterize serotype 14 isolates from IPDs by MLST in order to determine the genetic relationship between each sequence type (ST) and the incidence of antibiotic resistance amongst these clones.

This publication made use of the MLST website (http://www.mlst.net) developed by Man-Suen Chan and David Aanensen and funded by the Wellcome Trust. We are grateful to Angela Brueggemann for assigning new alleles and STs. Funding for the robot liquid handling systems and DNA sequencers was provided by the Meningitis Association (Scotland). We gratefully acknowledge all staff of the Scottish Meningococcus and Pneumococcus Reference Laboratory for performing serotyping, antibiotic sensitivity profiling and MLST.

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