Multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria are a major public health threat. However, intense efforts to limit their spread, the number of multidrug resistant Gram-negative bacteria continues to increase globally. Carbapenems, the most broad-spectrum beta lactam antibiotics active against Gram-negative organisms, are very slowly hydrolyzed by most beta-lactamases. Because of their broad-spectru...

Carbapenems (imipenem, meropenem, biapenem, ertapenem, and doripenem) are β-lactam antimicrobial agents. Because carbapenems have the broadest spectra among all β-lactams and are primarily used to treat infections by multi-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, the emergence and spread of carbapenemases became a major public health concern. Carbapenemases are the most versatile family of β-lactamase...

Nosocomial pneumonia is the leading cause of death in patients with hospital-acquired infections. The development of nosocomial pneumonia prolongs hospitalization, which may cause additional days in the intensive care unit, thereby increasing overall health care costs. Empiric treatment of nosocomial pneumonia with therapies that are subsequently shown to be inappropriate therapy (defined as an...

Carbapenem-hydrolyzing oxacillinases are reported increasingly in Acinetobacter baumannii. Since they hydrolyze carbapenems at low levels, the roles of carbapenem-hydrolyzing oxacillinases OXA-23, OXA-40, and OXA-58 in A. baumannii were determined. The bla(OXA-23), bla(OXA-40), and bla(OXA-58) genes were inserted in broad-host-range plasmid pAT801 and transformed in Escherichia coli DH10B and i...

The carbapenem-induced endotoxin release was evaluated using experimental models of gram-negative bacterial sepsis in Wistar rats. Infections with Escherichia coli, Serratia marcescens, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus vulgaris and Proteus mirabilis resulted in an increase of the plasma endotoxin concentration after treatment with ceftazidime and carbapenems including imip...

The Mycobacterium tuberculosis peptidoglycan is cross-linked mainly by l,d-transpeptidases (LDTs), which are efficiently inactivated by a single β-lactam class, the carbapenems. Development of carbapenems for tuberculosis treatment has recently raised considerable interest since these drugs, in association with the β-lactamase inhibitor clavulanic acid, are uniformly active against extensively ...

BACKGROUND Emergence of carbapenems-resistant K. pneumoniae represents a serious challenge for antimicrobial therapy. OBJECTIVE The aim of this research is to determine different mechanisms mediating the emergence of K. pneumoniae isolates with high-level carbapenem resistance. METHOD A total of 80 K. pneumoniae isolates were purified from sputum and urine specimens. The minimum inhibitory ...