Background & objectives: Members of the family enterobacteriaceae comprise the most common gram-negative isolates in microbiology laboratories. Amongst these members, multiple antibiotic-resistant isolates including those producing extended spectrum β-lactamases (ESBL) and AmpC β-lactamases (AmpC) have increased steadily. Further, metallo-β-lactamase (MBL) producing strains are also recently de...

The performance of Etest KPC and MBL strips (bioMérieux) was evaluated as compared to other phenotypic tests for detecting carbapenemases of the KPC-type and metallo-β-lactamases, respectively, on 133 well-characterized enterobacterial isolates. KPC and meropenem-containing MP/MPI Etest had high sensitivity (>92 %) and specificity (>97 %).

We describe a multiplex real-time PCR assay for use on the ABI 7500 Fast TaqMan platform to detect all currently described Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemases (KPC), New Delhi metallo-β-lactamases (NDM), and the OXA-48-like family of carbapenemases from bacterial culture lysates or sample enrichment broth lysates.

β-Lactamases are the most important mechanisms of resistance to the β-lactam antibacterials. There are two mechanistic classes of β-lactamases: the serine β-lactamases (SBLs) and the zinc-dependent metallo-β-lactamases (MBLs). Avibactam, the first clinically useful non-β-lactam β-lactamase inhibitor, is a broad-spectrum SBL inhibitor, which is used in combination with a cephalosporin antibiotic...

INTRODUCTION Acinetobacter baumannii is an important opportunistic pathogen responsible for causing nosocomial infections. Carbapenems are considered to be the drug of choice to treat infections caused by multidrug-resistant A. baumannii. The prevalent mechanism of carbapenem resistance in A. baumannii is enzymatic degradation by β-lactamases. Therefore, the aim of the study is to determine the...