Hypermutation in Burkholderia cepacia complex is mediated by DNA mismatch repair inactivation and is highly prevalent in cystic fibrosis chronic respiratory infection

MARTINA P; FELIZIANI S; JUAN C; BETTIOL M; GATTI B; YANTORNO O; SMANIA AM; OLIVER A; BOSCH A

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY (PRINT)

ELSEVIER GMBH

Año: 2014 vol. 304 p. 1182 - 1182

1438-4221

he Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) represents an important group of pathogens involved in long-term lung infection in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. A positive selection of hypermutators, linked to antimicrobial resistance development, has been previously reported for Pseudomonas aeruginosa in this chronic infection setting. Hypermutability, however, has not yet been systematically evaluated in Bcc species. A total of 125 well characterized Bcc isolates recovered from 48 CF patients, 10 non-CF patients and 15 environmental samples were analyzed. In order to determine the prevalence of mutators their spontaneous mutation rates to rifampicin resistance were determined. In addition, the genetic basis of the mutator phenotypes was investigated by sequencing the mutS and mutL genes, the main components of the mismatch repair system (MRS). The overall prevalence of hypermutators in the collection analyzed was 13.6%, with highest occurrence (40.7%) among the chronically infected CF patien