Abstract
Background
This study aims to explore the antibacterial activity of cethromycin against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), and its relationship with multilocus sequence typing (MLST), erythromycin ribosomal methylase (erm) genes and macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B (MLSB) phenotypes of S. aureus.
Results
The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of cethromycin against 245 S. aureus clinical isolates ranged from 0.03125 to ≥ 8 mg/L, with the resistance of 38.8% in 121 methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). This study also found that cethromycin had strong antibacterial activity against S. aureus, with the MIC ≤ 0.5 mg/L in 55.4% of MRSA and 60.5% of methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA), respectively. The main MLSTs of 121 MRSA were ST239 and ST59, and the resistance of ST239 isolates to cethromycin was higher than that in ST59 isolates (P = 0.034). The top five MLSTs of 124 MSSA were ST7, ST59, ST398, ST88 and ST120, but there was no difference in the resistance of MSSA to cethromycin between these STs. The resistance of ermA isolates to cethromycin was higher than that of ermB or ermC isolates in MRSA (P = 0.016 and 0.041, respectively), but the resistance of ermB or ermC isolates to cethromycin was higher than that of ermA isolates in MSSA (P = 0.019 and 0.026, respectively). The resistance of constitutive MLSB (cMLSB) phenotype isolates to cethromycin was higher than that of inducible MLSB (iMLSB) phenotype isolates in MRSA (P < 0.001) or MSSA (P = 0.036). The ermA, ermB and ermC genes was mainly found in ST239, ST59 and ST1 isolates in MRSA, respectively. Among the MSSA, the ermC gene was more detected in ST7, ST88 and ST120 isolates, but more ermB genes were detected in ST59 and ST398 isolates. The cMLSB phenotype was more common in ST239 and ST59 isolates of MRSA, and was more frequently detected in ST59, ST398, and ST120 isolates of MSSA.
Conclusion
Cethromycin had strong antibacterial activity against S. aureus. The resistance of MRSA to cethromycin may had some clonal aggregation in ST239. The resistance of S. aureus carrying various erm genes or MLSB phenotypes to cethromycin was different.
Similar content being viewed by others
Background
Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a common Gram-positive cocci, and now it is one of the leading pathogen of hospital and community acquired infections, often causing pneumonia, sepsis, skin and soft tissue infections, endocarditis, osteomyelitis, prosthetic joint infections, etc., with a high incidence rate and mortality [1]. Since British scholars discovered methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in 1961, MRSA has become the main epidemic one of the multi-drug resistant bacteria [2]. Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) is a genotyping method that defines the sequence type by comparing the partial sequences of seven housekeeping genes of S. aureus, and using the specific allele combination in the standardized MLST database [3]. Therefore, it has good repeatability and accuracy, and is suitable for monitoring the epidemiology of S. aureus in different laboratories around the world [4, 5].
In recent years, the incidence rate of MRSA in tertiary hospitals in China has been more than 30%, ranking first among Gram-positive bacteria infections, and resistance rate of MRSA to erythromycin is as high as about 80% [6]. In 1952, the first generation of macrolide antimicrobials, represented by erythromycin, was applied to the clinic [7]. In the 1980s, the second generation of macrolide antimicrobials, which were roxithromycin, azithromycin, clarithromycin, etc., began to be widely used in clinical practice [8, 9]. However, it was also led to an increasing number of S. aureus resistant to macrolide antimicrobials [10]. The erythromycin ribosomal methylase (erm) gene family is large and often linked to other drug resistant genes, or carried by plasmids, and generally located in conjugated or nonconjugated transposons, thus play an important role in the resistance of S. aureus to macrolide antimicrobials [11]. Among these erm genes, ermA, ermB, ermC and ermT genes are most common in S. aureus [12]. Lincosamides and Streptogramins B are two kinds of drugs with different structures but the same action targets and similar functions as macrolide antimicrobials, thus they are called Macrolide-Lincosamide- Streptogramin B (MLSB) antimicrobials [13]. The MLSB phenotype can be divided into constitutive MLSB (cMLSB phenotype: rRNA methylase is always produced), or inducible MLSB (iMLSB phenotype: methylase is produced only when an inducing substance like erythromycin is present) [14]. U.S Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) suggested that the inducible clindamycin-resistant test (D-test) should be conducted to distinguish the phenotypes of iMLSB and cMLSB [15]. Globally, ermA is detected in both cMLSB and iMLSB of MRSA, while ermC is mainly detected in iMLSB of methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA) [16,17,18].
In order to overcome the resistance of S. aureus to macrolide antimicrobials, the third-generation macrolides, namely new ketolide antimicrobials, such as telithromycin, solithromycin, and cethromycin, were developed by modifying the side chain of erythromycin [19]. Cethromycin is a new ketolide antibiotic being developed for use in respiratory tract infections, demonstrates more potent antibacterial effects than its predecessor telithromycin, and displays potent inhibition of both gram-positive and gram-negative respiratory pathogens [20]. In recent year, ketolide antimicrobials telithromycin, solithromycin and cethromycin were found didn’t induced ermA or ermC gene expression, while solithromycin could significantly induce ermB gene expression [21]. However, the antibacterial activity of cethromycin against S. aureus from China, and its relationship with erm genes is still unknown. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the antibacterial activity of cethromycin against S. aureus from China and compared with erythromycin and telithromycin, and to investigate its relationship with MLST, erm genes and MLSB phenotypes of S. aureus.
Results
Antimicrobial susceptibilities of erythromycin, telithromycin and cethromycin against S. aureus clinical isolates
The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of telithromycin and cethromycin against 245 S. aureus clinical isolates were detected by the agar dilution method, and MICs of oxacillin (to identify MRSA or MSSA) and erythromycin were identified by the broth macrodilution method. The information of 245 S. aureus clinical isolates, such as isolate ID, MLSTs, isolated date, MICs, erm genes and MLSB phenotypes, were summarized in Table S1 and Table S2. As Fig. 1A indicated, the MICs of cethromycin against 121 MRSA ranged from 0.03125 to ≥ 8 mg/L, including 47 resistant isolates (≥ 4 mg/L), with the resistance rate of 38.8% (47/121). The resistance of MRSA to erythromycin (≥ 8 mg/L) was 98.3% (119/121) and to telithromycin (≥ 4 mg/L) was 76.9% (93/121), which was much higher than that of cethromycin (P < 0.001 and P < 0.001, respectively). This difference is also found in MSSA, that is, the resistance of MSSA to cethromycin (37.1%, 46/124) is far lower than that of erythromycin (96.8%, 120/124) and telithromycin (75.8%, 94/124), with all the P values < 0.001 (Fig. 1B).
Antimicrobial susceptibilities of erythromycin, telithromycin and cethromycin against S.aureus Clinical isolates. A MICs distribution of erythromycin, telithromycin and cethromycin against MRSA. B MICs distribution of erythromycin, telithromycin and cethromycin against MSSA. MIC, minimum inhibitory concentration; MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus; MSSA, methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus
Interestingly, this study also found that cethromycin had strong antibacterial activity against S. aureus, and its MIC ≤ 0.5 mg/L is as high as 55.4% (67/121) in MRSA and 60.5% (75/124) in MSSA, which were much higher than that of telithromycin against MRSA (13.2%, 16/121) and MSSA (16.1%, 20/124), with all the P values < 0.001 (Fig. 1A and B).
Antimicrobial susceptibilities of erythromycin, telithromycin and cethromycin against different MLSTs of S. aureus clinical isolates
This study found that the main MLSTs of 121 MRSA were ST239 and ST59, and the resistance of ST239 isolates (51.7%) to cethromycin was higher than that in ST59 isolates (29.7%), P = 0.034 (Table 1). However, the resistance of ST59 isolates (97.3%) to telithromycin was higher than that in ST239 isolates (60.0%), P < 0.001. There was no difference in the resistance of different STs of MRSA to erythromycin. Among the 124 MSSA, the top five STs were ST7, ST59, ST398, ST88 and ST120, respectively. However, there was no difference in the resistance of MSSA to erythromycin, telithromycin or cethromycin between these STs (Table 1).
Antimicrobial susceptibilities of erythromycin, telithromycin and cethromycin against S. aureus clinical isolates with erm genes or MLSB phenotypes
Among the 121 MRSA, 116 isolates were erm genes positive (1 isolate was both ermA and ermB positive; 1 isolate was both ermB and ermC positive), and erm gene was not detected in 5 isolates. The resistance of ermA MRSA to cethromycin was higher than that of ermB or ermC isolates (P = 0.016 and P = 0.041, respectively). However, the resistance of ermB or ermC MRSA to telithromycin was higher than that of ermA isolates (P < 0.001 and P = 0.048, respectively). This study also found that the resistance of cMLSB phenotype isolates to cethromycin or telithromycin in MRSA was significantly higher than that of iMLSB phenotype isolates, P < 0.001 and P = 0.025, respectively (Table 2).
The present research indicated that among the 124 MSSA, 121 isolates were erm genes positive (2 isolates were both ermB and ermC positive), and erm gene was not detected in 3 isolates. The resistance of ermB or ermC MSSA to cethromycin was higher than that of ermA isolates (P = 0.019 and P = 0.026, respectively). This similar difference was also found in the telithromycin resistant MSSA isolates, that is the resistance of ermB or ermC MSSA isolates to telithromycin was higher than that of ermA isolates, with all the P values < 0.001. This study also found that, similar to the above results in MRSA isolates, the resistance of cMLSB phenotype MSSA isolates to cethromycin or telithromycin was higher than that of iMLSB phenotype isolates, P = 0.036 and P = 0.002, respectively (Table 2).
Distribution of erm genes or MLSB phenotypes in different MLST of S. aureus
In 121 MRSA, ermA was mainly found in ST239 isolates (91.7%), ermB was as high as 97.3% in ST59 isolates, and ermC was also found mainly in ST1 isolates (85.7%). The erm genes showed more obvious ST aggregation in 124 MSSA, and ermC was more detected in ST7 (74.1%), ST88 (57.1%) and ST120 (83.3%) isolates. However, more ermB were detected in ST59 (85.0%) and ST398 (66.7%) isolates (Fig. 2).
The cMLSB phenotype was more common in ST239 (88.3%) and ST59 (100.0%) isolates of MRSA, and also was more frequently detected in ST59 (95.0%), ST398 (75.0%), and ST120 (83.3%) isolates of MSSA (Fig. 3).
Distribution of MLSB phenotypes in different MLST of MRSA (A) or MSSA (B). MLSB, Macrolide-Lincosamide-Streptogramin B; cMLSB, constitutive MLSB; iMLSB, inducible MLSB; MLST, Multilocus Sequence Typing; NT, not detected; MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus; MSSA, methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcusaureus
Distribution of MLSB phenotypes in S. aureus with different erm genes
The cMLSB phenotype was more common in ermA (87.5%) or ermB (97.8%) isolates of the 121 MRSA. While in the 124 MSSA, the cMLSB phenotype was only more frequently detected in ermB (97.6%) isolates, and the iMLSB phenotype was more determined in ermA (88.9%) and ermC (84.7%) isolates (Fig. 4).
Discussion
Cethromycin, a new ketolide, has a similar mechanism with telithromycin but with an apparently better safety profile, indicates excellent activities against selected gram-positive, gram-negative, atypical bacteria, and even designed for tularemia, plague, and anthrax prophylaxis [22]. Recently it has been found that telithromycin induced liver toxicity, thus the United States Food and Drug Agency (US FDA) has restricted the indications of telithromycin. Interestingly, unlike telithromycin, cethromycin does not induce adverse hepatotoxic reactions and has good pharmacokinetic properties [23]. This study indicated that the antibacterial activity of cethromycin against 121 MRSA and 124 MSSA was significantly stronger than that of erythromycin or telithromycin. In the present study, the resistance of S. aureus to erythromycin was more than 99%, which was higher than the average level of Class III hospitals in China [6]. This study found that the resistance of 121 MRSA and 124 MSSA to cethromycin reached 38.8% and 37.1% respectively, which were higher than the results of Luna VA et al. [24]. In the study of Luna VA et al., the resistance of 170 MRSA cloned from USA300 in the United States to erythromycin was 90.6%, and no isolates resistant to cethromycin were found.
The main MLSTs of MRSA in this study were ST239 and ST59, which were consistent with most reports from MRSA epidemic isolates. S. aureus ST239 clone was found in Brazil for the first time [25]. Since then, it has been widely popular worldwide. ST239 clone is the main epidemic type in the world at present, and also the main epidemic strain causing HA-MRSA (healthcare-associated MRSA) in China [26, 27]. ST59 has always been considered the most common clone of CA-MRSA (community-associated MRSA) in China [27]. The MLSTs of MSSA detected in this study was relatively scattered. Previous studies have found that ST398, ST5, ST88 and ST7 are the more common epidemic MLSTs of MSSA in China [28, 29]. This study found that MRSA of ST239 and ST59 had different resistance rates to cethromycin, suggesting that these MRSA with different erm genes and cMLSB/iMLSB phenotypes.
This study demonstrated that ermA and ermB in MRSA was significantly related to the main MLSTs of ST239 and ST59, respectively, and they were mainly cMLSB phenotype, suggesting that highly homologous mobile elements or plasmids integrating ermA or ermB might transfer and spread in MRSA dominant phenotypes, leading to the occurrence of cMLSB phenotype. However, in MSSA, MLSTs were relatively scattered, the proportion of cMLSB and iMLSB is close, and ermB and ermC were mainly detected. The iMLSB phenotype was the main phenotype in ermA and ermC isolates, and the cMLSB phenotype was the main phenotype in ermB isolates. T Otsuka et al. found that in MRSA, the cMLSB phenotype accounted for 61.3%, while in MSSA, only 1.3%, mainly ermA gene; the iMLSB phenotype was 38.7% in MRSA and 94.0% in MSSA, with ermC as the main erm gene [30]. The results of this study were similar to those of T Otsuka et al., which also detected erm gene mainly with ermA, and MLSB phenotype mainly with cMLSB in MRSA.
Previous studies have shown that the iMLSB phenotype in Staphylococcus may be mediated by ermA or ermC [31, 32]. This study shown that most of the MLSTs in MSSA were related to ermC, and MSSA with ermC was dominated by iMLSB phenotype. In this study, there were five isolates of ST5 in all S. aureus, all of which had ermC gene and were all with iMLSB phenotype. However, in Ilczyszyn et al.’s research, CC5 (ST5) is the main popular clone of S. aureus, with ermA gene detected mostly [33]. In addition, Japanese researchers conducted comparative genomic analysis of a multi-drug resistant CA-MRSA-ST59-SCCmec V strain, and found that the ermB detected was integrated on a 21 kb mobile element containing a chromosome with a complex transposon Tn551-Tn5404 [34]. In this study, whether ermB in the dominant type ST59 of S. aureus was also integrated on the chromosome for transfer and transmission needs to be verified by further experiments. In addition, it should be noted that MRSA and MSSA in this study each had one isolate carrying ermC gene, but this isolate was sensitive to erythromycin. This indicated that the ermC carried by S. aureus may not be resistant to erythromycin, and the specific mechanism needs to be further explored.
Conclusion
This study found that cethromycin had strong antibacterial activity against S. aureus, and had antibacterial activity against erythromycin resistant S. aureus. The resistance of MRSA to cethromycin may had some clonal aggregation in ST239. The resistance of ermA MRSA to cethromycin was higher than that of ermB or ermC isolates, but the resistance of ermB or ermC MSSA to cethromycin was higher than that of ermA isolates. The resistance of cMLSB phenotype isolates to cethromycin in MRSA or MSSA was significantly higher than that of iMLSB phenotype isolates.
Methods
Bacterial isolates and chemicals
A total of 245 S. aureus clinical isolates [Isolated from sputum (79), throat swabs (46), blood (39), pus (35), catheters (24), pleural effusion (14), and cerebrospinal fluid (8)] were retrospectively collected from the inpatients of Shenzhen Nanshan People’s Hospital (which includes 1200 beds), Shenzhen University in China, from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2015. All clinical isolates were identified with the Phoenix 100 automated microbiology system (BD, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA) and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (IVD MALDI Biotyper, Germany). After being identified as S. aureus, the monoclone of S. aureus was picked up and cultured, then the cultures were added in glycerol with the final concentration of 30%, finally were save in—80℃ refrigerator.
S. aureus isolates were grown in tryptic soy broth (TSB) at 37 °C with shaking of 180 rpm unless otherwise stated. For the antimicrobial susceptibility test, isolates were grown in cation-adjusted Mueller–Hinton broth (CAMHB) at 37 °C with shaking.
Oxacillin sodium (catalogue no. HY-B0465), erythromycin (catalogue no. HY-B0220), telithromycin (catalogue no. HY-A0062), cethromycin (catalogue no. HY-19655) were purchased from MedChemExpress (MCE, Shanghai, China).
Antimicrobial susceptibility testing
The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of oxacillin and erythromycin against S. aureus clinical isolates were determined by the broth macrodilution method, MICs of telithromycin and cethromycin against S. aureus clinical isolates were determined by the agar dilution method, according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines (CLSI-M100-S27). All experiments were performed in triplicate. The antimicrobial susceptibility breakpoints of oxacillin, erythromycin, and telithromycin were confirmed based on CLSI-M100-S27. As no CLSI susceptibility breakpoints for cethromycin were recommended against S. aureus, thus the susceptibility breakpoints for telithromycin against S. aureus in CLSI-M100-S27 were used for reference in this study, that is, the resistance of cethromycin against S. aureus were ≥ 4 mg/L.
MLST analysis
The genomic DNA of S. aureus clinical isolates was extracted with a commercial DNA extraction kit (Dalian Bio Engineering China Co., Ltd.). MLST analysis was conducted according to the previous study [35]. In short, seven housekeeping genes (arcC, aroE, glpF, gmk, pta, tpi, yqiL) of S. aureus were PCR amplified and sequenced, and PCR amplification was performed in a total volume of 50 μl, containing 2 × PCR Master Mix (Tiangen Biotech Beijing Co., Ltd, Beijing, China), 0.5 mM of each primer, and 1 µl template DNA. The cycling conditions were as follows: 94 °C for 5 min; followed by 30 cycles at 94 °C for 45 s, 45 °C for 30 s, 72 °C for 60 s; and a final 5 min extension step at 72 °C. Each PCR set included a no-template control and a positive control. Alleles and sequence types (STs) were assigned by the MLST database (http://saureus.mlst.net/Staphylococcus aureus.html). All PCR primers used for MLST analysis were listed in Table S3.
Detection of erm genes
The macrolide antimicrobials ribosomal methylase genes (erm genes), ermA, ermB and ermC, were detected by PCR based on the previous study [36, 37]. The genomic DNA of S. aureus clinical isolates was extracted as above mentioned. The PCR reaction system was as described above, and only the PCR primers were different. The cycling conditions were as follows: 93 °C for 2 min; followed by 30 cycles at 93 °C for 30 s, 55 °C for 30 s, 72 °C for 60 s; and a final 5 min extension step at 72 °C. Each PCR set included a no-template control and a positive control. All PCR primers used for the detection of erm genes were listed in Table S4.
D-zone test
The inducible clindamycin-resistant test (D-zone test) conducted to determine the phenotypes of iMLSB and cMLSB according to the previous study [38]. The erythromycin and clindamycin susceptibility test discs were purchased from Sigma Aldrich (shanghai, China). After 16 to 18 h of incubation, the D-zone test results were assessed by transmitted or reflected light and interpreted according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines.
Statistical analysis
The data of the present study was reported as a number (percentage) and was compared using the chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test. P values < 0.05 were regarded as statistically significant. All data were analyzed using the statistical software SPSS (version 20.0; SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA).
Availability of data and materials
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].
Abbreviations
- Erm :
-
Erythromycin ribosomal methylase
- MIC:
-
Minimum inhibitory concentration
- MLSB:
-
Macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B
- cMLSB:
-
Constitutive MLSB
- iMLSB:
-
Inducible MLSB
- MLST:
-
Multilocus sequence typing
- MRSA:
-
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
- MSSA:
-
Methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus
References
Cheung GYC, Bae JS, Otto M. Pathogenicity and virulence of Staphylococcus aureus. Virulence. 2021;12:547–69.
Lakhundi S, Zhang K. Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus: molecular characterization, evolution, and epidemiology. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2018;31(4):e00020-e118.
Deurenberg RH, Stobberingh EE. The molecular evolution of hospital- and community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Curr Mol Med. 2009;9:100–15.
Robinson DA, Enright MC. Multilocus sequence typing and the evolution of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2004;10:92–7.
Chen H, Liu Y, Jiang X, Chen M, Wang H. Rapid change of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus clones in a Chinese tertiary care hospital over a 15-year period. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2010;54:1842–7.
Hu F, Zhu D, Wang F, Wang M. Current status and trends of antibacterial resistance in China. Clin Infect Dis. 2018;67:S128–34.
Amsden GW. Erythromycin, clarithromycin, and azithromycin: are the differences real? Clin Ther. 1996;18:56–72.
Girard AE, Girard D, English AR, et al. Pharmacokinetic and in vivo studies with azithromycin (CP-62,993), a new macrolide with an extended half-life and excellent tissue distribution. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 1987;31:1948–54.
Omura S, Morimoto S, Nagate T, Adachi T, Kohno Y. Research and development of clarithromycin. Yakugaku Zasshi. 1992;112:593–614.
Bradley JS. Newer antistaphylococcal agents. Curr Opin Pediatr. 2005;17:71–7.
Alekshun MN, Levy SB. Molecular mechanisms of antibacterial multidrug resistance. Cell. 2007;128:1037–50.
Wan TW, Hung WC, Tsai JC, et al. Novel Structure of Enterococcus faecium-Originated ermB-Positive Tn1546-Like Element in Staphylococcus aureus. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2016;60:6108–14.
Tenson T, Lovmar M, Ehrenberg M. The mechanism of action of macrolides, lincosamides and streptogramin B reveals the nascent peptide exit path in the ribosome. J Mol Biol. 2003;330:1005–14.
Assefa M. Inducible Clindamycin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates in Africa: A Systematic Review. Int J Microbiol. 2022;2022:1835603.
Humphries R, Bobenchik AM, Hindler JA, Schuetz AN. Overview of changes to the clinical and laboratory standards institute performance standards for antimicrobial susceptibility testing, M100, 31st Edition. J Clin Microbiol. 2021;59:e0021321.
Schmitz FJ, Sadurski R, Kray A, et al. Prevalence of macrolide-resistance genes in Staphylococcus aureus and enterococcus faecium isolates from 24 European university hospitals. J Antimicrob Chemother. 2000;45:891–4.
Gherardi G, De Florio L, Lorino G, Fico L, Dicuonzo G. Macrolide resistance genotypes and phenotypes among erythromycin-resistant clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus and coagulase-negative staphylococci, Italy. FEMS Immunol Med Microbiol. 2009;55:62–7.
Wang L, Liu Y, Yang Y, et al. Multidrug-resistant clones of community-associated meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolated from Chinese children and the resistance genes to clindamycin and mupirocin. J Med Microbiol. 2012;61:1240–7.
Dinos GP. The macrolide antibiotic renaissance. Br J Pharmacol. 2017;174:2967–83.
Rafie S, MacDougall C, James CL. Cethromycin: a promising new ketolide antibiotic for respiratory infections. Pharmacotherapy. 2010;30:290–303.
Min YH. Solithromycin can specifically induce macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B resistance. Microb Drug Resist. 2020;26:1046–9.
Mansour H, Chahine EB, Karaoui LR, El-Lababidi RM. Cethromycin: a new ketolide antibiotic. Ann Pharmacother. 2013;47:368–79.
Jin L, Zhang X, Luo Z, Wu X, Zhao Z. Synthesis and antibacterial activity of novel 2-fluoro ketolide antibiotics with 11,12-quinoylalkyl side chains. Bioorg Med Chem Lett. 2023;80:129115.
Luna VA, Xu ZQ, Eiznhamer DA, Cannons AC, Cattani J. Susceptibility of 170 isolates of the USA300 clone of MRSA to macrolides, clindamycin and the novel ketolide cethromycin. J Antimicrob Chemother. 2008;62:639–40.
Teixeira LA, Resende CA, Ormonde LR, et al. Geographic spread of epidemic multiresistant Staphylococcus aureus clone in Brazil. J Clin Microbiol. 1995;33:2400–4.
Lawal OU, Ayobami O, Abouelfetouh A, et al. A 6-Year Update on the Diversity of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Clones in Africa: A Systematic Review. Front Microbiol. 2022;13:860436.
Yu Y, Yao Y, Weng Q, et al. Dissemination and Molecular Characterization of Staphylococcus aureus at a Tertiary Referral Hospital in Xiamen City, China. Biomed Res Int. 2017;2017:1367179.
Qiao Y, Ning X, Chen Q, et al. Clinical and molecular characteristics of invasive community-acquired Staphylococcus aureus infections in Chinese children. BMC Infect Dis. 2014;14:582.
Liu C, Chen ZJ, Sun Z, et al. Molecular characteristics and virulence factors in methicillin-susceptible, resistant, and heterogeneous vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus from central-southern China. J Microbiol Immunol Infect. 2015;48:490–6.
Otsuka T, Zaraket H, Takano T, et al. Macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B resistance phenotypes and genotypes among Staphylococcus aureus clinical isolates in Japan. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2007;13:325–7.
Daurel C, Huet C, Dhalluin A, Bes M, Etienne J, Leclercq R. Differences in potential for selection of clindamycin-resistant mutants between inducible erm(A) and erm(C) Staphylococcus aureus genes. J Clin Microbiol. 2008;46:546–50.
Miklasińska-Majdanik M. Mechanisms of resistance to macrolide antibiotics among Staphylococcus aureus. Antibiotics (Basel). 2021;10:1406.
Ilczyszyn WM, Sabat AJ, Akkerboom V, et al. Clonal structure and characterization of Staphylococcus aureus strains from invasive infections in paediatric patients from South Poland: association between age, spa Types, clonal complexes, and genetic markers. PLoS ONE. 2016;11:e0151937.
Hung WC, Takano T, Higuchi W, et al. Comparative genomics of community-acquired ST59 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Taiwan: novel mobile resistance structures with IS1216V. PLoS ONE. 2012;7:e46987.
Enright MC, Day NP, Davies CE, Peacock SJ, Spratt BG. Multilocus sequence typing for characterization of methicillin-resistant and methicillin-susceptible clones of Staphylococcus aureus. J Clin Microbiol. 2000;38:1008–15.
Schwarz S, Kehrenberg C, Ojo KK. Staphylococcus sciuri gene erm(33), encoding inducible resistance to macrolides, lincosamides, and streptogramin B antibiotics, is a product of recombination between erm(C) and erm(A). Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2002;46:3621–3.
Lina G, Quaglia A, Reverdy ME, Leclercq R, Vandenesch F, Etienne J. Distribution of genes encoding resistance to macrolides, lincosamides, and streptogramins among staphylococci. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 1999;43:1062–6.
Yusuf E, de Bel A, Bouasse J, Piérard D. D-Zone test for detection of inducible clindamycin resistance using SirScan paper disks and Rosco Neo-Sensitabs at 25 and 15 mm distances. J Med Microbiol. 2014;63:1052–4.
Shang H, Wang YS, Shen ZY. National Guide to Clinical Laboratory Procedures. Beijing: People’s Medical Publishing House; 2015.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Weiguang Pan and Jie Lian (Department of Laboratory Medicine, Shenzhen Nanshan People's Hospital and the 6th Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University Health Science Center, Shenzhen 518052, China) for helping identify and preserve the bacterial isolates.
Funding
This work was supported by the following grants:National Natural Science Foundation of China (82172283); Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (2020A1515010979, 2020A1515111146, 2021A1515011727); Shenzhen Key Medical Discipline Construction Fund (SZXK06162); Science, Technology and Innovation Commission of Shenzhen Municipality of basic research funds (JCYJ20180302144403714, JCYJ20190809110209389, JCYJ20190809151817062), the Shenzhen Nanshan District Scientific Research Program of the People’s Republic of China (No. NS2021009, NS2021066, NS2021144, NS2021140, NS2021117).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Hu Y participated in the antimicrobial susceptibility test, D-zone test and drafted the manuscript. Ouyang L performed the antimicrobial susceptibility test. Li D participated in the collection of S. aureus clinical isolates and the detection of erm genes. Deng X and Xu H conducted the MLST analysis and participated in the detection of erm genes. Yu Z and Fang Y participated in the collection of S. aureus clinical isolates and D-zone test. Zheng J, Chen Z and Zhang H designed the study, participated in the data analysis, and provided critical revisions of the manuscript for valuable intellectual content. All authors have read and approved the manuscript.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Ethics approval and consent to participate
All procedures involving human participants were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of Shenzhen Nanshan People's Hospital and the 6th Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University Health Science Center and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments, and this study was approved by the ethics committee of the Shenzhen Nanshan People's Hospital and the 6th Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University Health Science Center. Isolates were collected as part of the routine clinical management of patients, according to the national guidelines in China [39]. Therefore, informed consent was not sought.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Additional file 1:
Table S1. The supplementary information of 121 MRSA in this study. Table S2. The supplementary information of 124 MSSA in this study. Table S3. PCR primers used for S. aureus MLST gene diversity determination. Table S4. PCR primers used for S. aureus erm genes detection.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
About this article
Cite this article
Hu, Y., Ouyang, L., Li, D. et al. The antimicrobial activity of cethromycin against Staphylococcus aureus and compared with erythromycin and telithromycin. BMC Microbiol 23, 109 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12866-023-02858-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12866-023-02858-1