CANCELLED - Klebsiella pneumoniae

Speaker: Senior Staff Scientist Eva Heinz, Sanger Institute

Host: Professor Kenn Gerdes, BASP, Functional Genomics

Abstract
Members of the genus Klebsiella are gram-negative bacteria that are widely distributed in the environment, and Klebsiella pneumoniae is a common cause of infection in humans and one of the most prevalent hospital-associated infections worldwide. There is an alarming, steady rise in extensive multidrug resistant strains which can carry resistance mechanisms against all currently used antibiotic treatments. However, our understanding of the population structure and transmission patterns are still very limited. I will provide an overview of how comparative genomic analyses give us insights to the highly diverse population structure of Klebsiella pneumoniae and allows us to analyse the movement of drug resistances and virulence factors, as well as the identification of virulent clones that cause clonal outbreaks, against a background a of highly diverse population causing only sporadic cases. Access to the whole genome sequence also gives us the opportunity to interrogate the genetic background of more virulent clones in detail, including intrinsic resistance mechanisms through specific modifications of the drugs or the drug targets, or more general resistance mechanisms, mainly the reduction of influx through porin deactivation or increased efflux through increased diversity and/or expression of efflux pumps.