Genomic characterization of novel IncFII-type multidrug resistant plasmids p0716-KPC and p12181-KPC from Klebsiella pneumoniae

This study aimed to genetically characterize two fully-sequenced novel IncFII-type multidrug resistant (MDR) plasmids, p0716-KPC and p12181-KPC, recovered from two different clinical Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates. p0716-KPC and p12181-KPC had a very similar genomic content. The backbones of p0716-KPC/p12181-KPC contained two different replicons (belonging to a novel IncFII subtype and the Rep_3 family), the IncFII K and IncFII Y maintenance regions, and conjugal transfer gene sets from IncFII K -type plasmids and unknown origins. p0716-KPC and p12181-KPC carried similar three accessory resistance regions, namely ΔTn 6209 , a MDR region, and the bla KPC-2 region. Resistance genes bla KPC-2 , mph(A) , strAB , aacC2 , qacEΔ1 , sul1 , sul2 , and dfrA25 , which are associated with transposons, integrons, and insertion sequence-based mobile units, were located in these accessory regions. p0716-KPC carried two additional resistance genes: aphA1a and bla TEM-1 . Together, our analyses showed that p0716-KPC and p12181-KPC belong to a novel IncFII subtype and display a complex chimeric nature, and that the carbapenem resistance gene bla KPC-2 coexists with a lot of additional resistance genes on these two plasmids.