Introduction
Acinetobacter baumannii is an opportunistic Gram-negative bacillus that is primarily responsible for causing infections among critically ill patients that may be immunocompromised [
1]. The two principal clinical manifestations are pneumonia and bacteremia, followed by complicated urinary tract infections (cUTIs), meningitis, traumatic or post-surgical wound infections, and osteomyelitis [
2]. Carbapenem-resistant
A. baumannii (CRAB) was recently classified as a critical priority pathogen by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as infections due to this pathogen are challenging to treat given the lack of viable treatment options [
3,
4]. Additionally, the global emergence and spread of highly resistant
A. baumannii highlights the need for new antimicrobial therapies [
4]. Despite efforts by several research groups and pharmaceutical companies over the past decade [5-7], the only new novel drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) active against
A. baumannii is cefiderocol(
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2019/209445s000lbl.pdf). Guidance documents from various American and European scientific societies recommend cefiderocol for treating CRAB infections. However, these recommendations are based on in vitro results and only limited clinical trials. Although positive outcomes abound, there are recent reports indicating decreased cefiderocol efficacy against multidrug resistant (MDR) CRAB [8-11] suggestive of increasing cefiderocol resistance [12-14].
Heteroresistance is a phenotype wherein a small fraction of bacteria within a bacterial community develop resistance under antibiotic pressure [
15,
16]. Heteroresistance can lead to consequential resistance since the resistant subpopulation expands following prolonged antibiotic exposure. Heteroresistance to cefiderocol has been observed among different carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative species [
17,
18]. CREDIBLE-CR, a randomized, open-label, multicenter phase 3 clinical trial was conducted to evaluate the safety and efficacy of cefiderocol for the treatment of nosocomial pneumonia, blood stream infection, sepsis, or complicated urinary tract infection due to carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative pathogens. [
19] Among the 118 patients in the intent-to-treat population, 54 patients were infected with
A. baumannii i.e., the most frequent carbapenem-resistant pathogen. Prior randomized trials that included
A. baumannii most often focused on colistin based regimens. [
8] The all-cause mortality in the cefiderocol group compared to the best available therapy was higher (19/39) particularly in patients with nosocomial pneumonia or bloodstream infection or sepsis with
Acinetobacter spp at baseline [
19]. Results from more recent studies also reported cefiderocol heteroresistance when
A. baumannii was cultured in the presence of human serum albumin (HSA) or human pleural fluids (HPF) [
20]. These human fluid components induced modifications in expression levels of genes related to high-affinity iron uptake systems and resistance to β-lactams [21-26]. This is supported by evidence that showed that most of the strains that exhibited heteroresistance, harbored the gene
blaPER-7 [
27,
28]. Choby et al. observed a correlation between amplification of Enterobacterales and
A. baumannii ESBLs genes and consequently heteroresistance to cefiderocol [
29]. Higher resistance levels were also observed in NDM-producing Enterobacterales isolates and in at least one case increased
blaNDM-5 expression was correlated with increased cefiderocol resistance [
30,
31].
As mentioned before, the addition of human fluids to CRAB cultures can lead to CFDC heteroresistance. In this work, with the aim of gaining a better understanding of the underlying reason for this phenomenon, we carried out molecular and phenotypic analyses of two selected CRAB heteroresistant bacterial subpopulations obtained after exposure to HPF. We observed that the selected heteroresistant variants of the clinical isolate CRAB AMA40 acquired chromosomal mutations that impacted genes coding for numerous functions, one of which could be related to iron metabolism, and produced significant changes in gene expression. Genes coding for β-lactamases, high-affinity iron uptake systems, and functions related to biofilm formation were expressed at higher levels in the heteroresistant variants compared to the AMA40 parental strain. In addition, a decrease in the transcripts of genes coding for outer membrane proteins was observed in the selected mutant variants.
Discussion
Cefiderocol has shown to be a promising new option for hard-to-treat infections caused by carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacilli, including
A. baumannii. However, there have been increasing reports of cefiderocol resistance [
8,
9,
13,
14]. In the present study, we studied the emergent heteroresistance AMA40 CRAB cells observed after exposure to HSA-containing human fluids. The genomic, transcriptional, and phenotypic analysis of the two randomly selected isogenic variants indicated that multiple factors may be responsible for the cefiderocol resistance phenotype of IHC1 and IHC2 derivatives, including genomic mutations, increased expression of β-lactamases, reduced expression of porins, and increased biofilm formation. The
ppiA mutation is an interesting observation that may be related to the increased cefiderocol resistance of the aforementioned AMA40 derivatives. In
Mycobacterium tuberculosis, PpiA is upregulated during heat shock implying that it may be related to stress responses and possibly virulence [
47]. The
M. tuberculosis ppiA gene was also downregulated during iron depletion, suggesting that its expression could be iron regulated [
48]. In other studies, PPIases demonstrated a pivotal role in catalyzing the correct folding of many prokaryotic and eukaryotic proteins involved in diverse biological functions, ranging from cell cycle regulation to bacterial infection [
49]. However, in
A. baumannii its role in iron homeostasis, antibiotic resistance and virulence has not yet been studied.
It has been reported that one factor that can contribute to cefiderocol r esistance is the increased expression of β-lactamases. Simner et al. [
36] reported a case of a transplant recipient infected with an
E. coli isolate harboring a
blaNDM-5 gene, which progressively lost susceptibility to cefiderocol following treatment. The analysis of different isolates recovered during the course of antibiotic treatment showed an increase in the copy number and expression of
blaNDM-5 [
36]. A previously reported case of a male patient in his 50s whose initial blood cultures had revealed a susceptible
K. pneumoniae, which became resistant to cefiderocol upon completing cefiderocol therapy, provides further evidence about the role of this gene in cefiderocol resistance. The sequencing of this
K. pneumoniae isolate identified
blaNDM-5, suggesting that the presence of NDM can be implicated in the development of cefiderocol resistance [
15]. In addition, Choby et al. [
17] , observed the amplification of the ESBLs genes in Enterobacterales and
A. baumannii and the consequently development of heteroresistance to cefiderocol. This outcome supports our observation with the AMA40 IHC1 and IHC2 strains identifying
blaNDM-1 and
blaADC as potential contributors to heteroresistance development [
29].
Additional factors that could play a role in the increased resistance observed in the AMA40 heteroresistance colonies include the down-regulation of the porin coding genes
carO and
ompA. CarO allows the permeation of imipenem in
A. baumannii [
50], while the lack of a functional OmpA is associated with increased susceptibility to different antibiotics such as chloramphenicol, colistin, aztreonam, imipenem, gentamicin and nalidixic acid in this pathogen [
51]. Another factor that needs to be considered is the increased expression of biofilm associated genes with the concomitant increase in biofilms formation in both heteroresistant strains. We also observed an increase in the expression of
bfmR. There is significant published literature describing the role of the BfmRS two-component system, controlling various
A. baumannii cellular processes, including biofilm formation [
43,
52]. Previous studies have also shown that hyperactive alleles of BfmRS conferred increased resistance and tolerance against an expansive set of antibiotics, including dramatic protection from β-lactam activity [
44,
46,
52,
53]. The increased expression of
bfmR observed in the heteroresistant cells could be responsible for the increase in colistin and amikacin MICs as reported [
52]. Given its role in developing heteroresistance to cefiderocol, further mechanistic studies characterizing the role BfmRS play in cefiderocol resistance are necessary.
Recently, unstable
A. baumannii heteroresistance subpopulations were found in 8/10 samples cultured in the presence of high cefiderocol concentrations. Genomic analyses of heteroresistant isolates revealed the presence of PBP3 and TonB3 mutations that were shared by all strains regardless of their resistance phenotype [
18]. In contrast, the resistance traits of the AMA40 IHC1 and IHC2 derivatives isolated during our work, which represent subpopulations obtained after the exposure of AMA40 to HSA-containing fluids, were maintained in a stable manner, even in the absence of cefiderocol selection pressure. Furthermore, the genomic analysis of the AMA40 IHC1 and IHC2 derivatives did not reveal a direct and clear connection to the functional expression of high-affinity iron acquisition processes. Taken together, these observations suggests that a combination of different cellular mechanisms are involved in driving the emergence of stable cefiderocol heteroresistance in processes that is affected by the presence of host fluids containing HSA.
Fortunately, several authors reported that the combination of cefiderocol and a diazabicyclooctane (DBO) derivative, like avibactam, relebactam or zidebactam, seems to restore the antibacterial activity of cefiderocol against CRAB, at concentrations that are several times lower than its cefiderocol MIC and limits, in some cases, the emergence of resistance [
18,
54]. Subpopulations with moderate to high level of resistance to cefiderocol described in this work, recovered susceptibility to cefiderocol regardless its combination with DBO. The mechanism of this synergistic activity of cefiderocol in combination with DBO is not understood especially given that multiple factors are responsible for the emergence of cefiderocol resistant subpopulations. In our work, we observed that even in the case where hyperproduction of β-lactamases that are not inhibited or are unresponsive to DBOs, such as
blaNDM and
blaADC, the susceptibility to cefiderocol is restored. These results further support the concept that combinatorial therapy is a good option to restore cefiderocol susceptibility while preventing the emergence of heteroresistance or resistant intra-colonies.
The antimicrobial failure and the development of resistance by CRAB and other microbial pathogens was raised during studies that evaluated the efficacy of cefiderocol activity [
19,
55]. Falcone et al. observed that among patients who experienced medical failure following cefiderocol monotherapy treatment, all had bloodstream infections (30% of Blood Stream Infections patients) [
55]. In the presence of HSA, the main serum protein, the killing activity of cefiderocol was reduced against both, susceptible and low-level resistant strains as observed in an in vitro model [
32]. Although a reduction in the free fraction of cefiderocol available is expected due to its strong binding to HSA (
ca 60%;) [
56], the antibiotic concentrations tested by far exceeded the MIC of the parental strain.
In a real scenario, a significant benefit of cefiderocol treatment in patients with CRAB infections was noticed, except in VAP patients [
55]. We previously demonstrated that HSA as well HPF modulates the expression of genes associated with iron uptake systems and antibiotic resistance [20,25,57-59].
Author Contributions
V.M., B.N., J.E., M.R.T., T.S., F.P., G.M.I., R.S., Q.V., R.A.B, M.E.T., G.R. and M.S.R. conceived the study and designed the experiments. B.N., J.E., M.R.T., T.S., V.M., I.M., G.M.I., R.S., Q.V., and M.S.R. performed the experiments and genomics and bioinformatics analyses. G.M.I., M.R.T., T.S., F.P., L.A.A., R.A.B, M.E.T. G.R., and M.S.R. analyzed the data and interpreted the results. R.A.B., M.E.T., G.R., and M.S.R. contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools. G.M.T., M.R.T., T.S., F.P., R.S., R.A.B, LAA, M.E.T., G.R., and M.S.R. wrote and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.