Assessment of Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae Isolates Using Multilocus Sequence Typing in West of Iran

Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumonia (hvKP) has been considered due to severe infections such as pyogenic liver abscess, pneumonia, meningitis, endophthalmitis and necrotizing fasciitis. Due to the importance of the subject, hvKP isolates were investigated in the current study. A total of 52 non-repetitive Klebsiella pneumonia (K. pneumonia) isolates were collected from clinical specimens (pleural fluid, blood, urine and trachal aspiration) of hospitalized patients in three well-known hospitals in Ilam, west of Iran. Phenotypic tests, including the string test and potassium tellurite resistance, and molecular methods such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for iucA, iroB, iutA, and rmpA genes were used for hvKP diagnosis. In addition, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) was used to clarify the genetic relationships between isolates. The mrkD, iroB, iucA, iutA, and rmpA genes were present in 6 (11.53%), 4 (7.7%), 12 (23.1%), 5 (9.6%), and 8 (15.4%) of the K. pneumoniae isolates, respectively. Eight isolates from different sources were identified with new sequence types (STs). These newly identified STs include ST-7466, ST-7467, ST-7468, ST-7469, ST-7470, ST-7471, ST-7472 and ST-7473. We reported the eight new STs based on the MLST method for the phylogenetics of hvKP isolates. Our data indicated that no correlation between the phylogenetics of hvKP isolates. So, more extensive studies are needed to better understand the epidemiology of hvKP.