First detection of a plasmid located carbapenem resistant blaVIM-1 gene in E. coli isolated from meat products at retail in Belgium in 2015

Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) confer resistance to antibiotics that are of critical importance to human medicine. There have only been a few reported cases of CPEs in the European food chain. We report the first detection of a carbapenemase-producing Escherichia coli (ST 5869) in the Belgian food chain. Our aim was to characterize the origin of the carbapenem resistance in the E. coli isolate. The isolate was detected during the screening of 178 minced pork samples and was shown to contain the carbapenemase gene bla(VIM-1) by PCR and Sanger sequencing. Whole genome short and long read sequencing (MiSeq and MinION) was performed to characterize the isolate. With a hybrid assembly we reconstructed a 190,205 bp IncA/C2 plasmid containing bla(VIM-1) (S15FP06257_p), in addition to other critically important resistance genes. This plasmid showed only low similarity to plasmids containing bla(VIM-1) previously reported in Germany. Moreover, no sequences existed in the NCBI nucleotide database that completely covered S15FP06257_p. Analysis of the bla(VIM-1) gene cassette demonstrated that it likely originated from an integron of a Klebsiella plasmid reported previously in a clinical isolate in Europe, suggesting that the meat could have been contaminated by human handling in one of the steps of the food chain. This study shows the relevance of fully reconstructing plasmids to characterize their genetic content and to allow source attribution. This is especially important in view of the potential risk of antimicrobial resistance gene transmission through mobile elements as was reported here for the of public health concern bla(VIM-1).