Azithromycin Susceptibility Testing and Molecular Investigation of Isolates Collected in Russia, 2020-2021

Overview

Journal Antibiotics (Basel)

Specialty Pharmacology

Date 2023 Jan 21

PMID 36671371

Authors

Ilya Kandinov

Boris Shaskolskiy

Dmitry Kravtsov

Alexandra Vinokurova

Sofya Gorshkova

Alexey Kubanov

Victoria Solomka

Julia Shagabieva

Dmitry Deryabin

Ekaterina Dementieva

Dmitry Gryadunov

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The aim of this work was to study the resistance to macrolides (azithromycin) in the modern Russian population of with the analysis of genetic resistance determinants. Azithromycin is not used to treat gonococcal infection in Russia. However, among 162 isolates collected in 2020-2021, 22 isolates (13.6%) were phenotypically resistant to azithromycin. Mutations in 23S rRNA genes were found only in two isolates; and genes were absent. Azithromycin resistance was shown to be predominantly associated with mutations in the and genes of the MtrCDE efflux pump and their mosaic alleles which may have formed due to a horizontal transfer from . A total of 30 types of alleles and 10 types of alleles were identified including mosaic variants. Matching between the and alleles was revealed to indicate the cooperative molecular evolution of these genes. A link between the and alleles and NG-MAST types was found only for NG-MAST 228 and 807, typical of in Russia. The high level of resistance to azithromycin in Russia may be related to the spread of multiple transferable resistance to antimicrobials regardless of their use in the treatment of gonococcal infection.

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