The dissemination of Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemases (KPCs) among Gram-negative bacteria is an important threat to global health. However, KPC-producing bacteria from environmental samples are rarely reported. This study aimed to elucidate the underlying resistance mechanisms of three carbapenem-resistant Aeromonas taiwanensis isolates recovered from river sediment samples. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and whole genome sequencing (WGS) analysis indicated a close evolutionary relationship among A. taiwanensis isolates. S1-PFGE, Southern blot and conjugation assays confirmed the presence of blaKPC–2 and qnrS2 genes on a non-conjugative plasmid in these isolates. Plasmid analysis further showed that pKPC-1713 is an IncP-6 plasmid with a length of 53,205 bp, which can be transformed into DH5α strain and mediated carbapenems and quinolones resistance. The plasmid backbone of p1713-KPC demonstrated 99% sequence identity to that of IncP-6-type plasmid pKPC-cd17 from Aeromonas spp. and IncP-6-type plasmid: 1 from Citrobacter freundii at 74% coverage. A 14,808 bp insertion sequence was observed between merT gene and hypothetical protein in p1713-KPC, which include the quinolone resistance qnrS2 gene. Emergence of plasmid-borned blaKPC and qnrS2 genes from A. taiwanensis isolates highlights their possible dissemination into the environment. Therefore, potential detection of such plasmids from clinical isolates should be closely monitored.

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Objectives: Since December 2019, acute respiratory disease due to 2019 novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan city and rapidly spread throughout China. Real-time RT-PCR is widely deployed in diagnostic virology. However, the positive detection rates of RT-PCR are only 30% to 50%. Therefore, we propose a simple strategy for rapidly and sensitively detecting the IgM/IgG antibody against 2019-nCoV using a colloidal gold-based immunochromatographic strip test.Methods A total of 41 clinically 2019-nCoV suspected cases (23 males and 18 females) were enrolled. The sensitivity of colloidal gold-based immunochromatographic strip test and of RT-PCR were compared and evaluated. McNemar’s test was used to compare the detection rate of both assays (P<0.05).Results: The Antibody was detected in 63.4% (26/41) of blood specimens using the assay. In contrast, the 2019-nCoV was detected in 46.3% (19/41) of nasal and pharyngeal swab specimens using the RT-PCR assays. The detection rate obtained by this assay was markedly higher than that obtained by the RT-PCR assays (P=0.039)Conclusion: This detection assay exhibits a higher detection sensitivity than RT-PCR. More important, the assay shows the benefits of easy operation and setup. We believe that the sensitive and time-saving approach may be used as an auxiliary diagnostic tool for 2019-nCoV detection and virus screening and confirmation.

Staphylococcus microti DSM 22147 was isolated from viscera of common voles (Microtus arvalis Pallas) with generalized Brucella microti infection in the Czech Republic. To the best of our knowledge, the genome sequence of the species S. microti has not been previously studied. The complete genome sequence of strain DSM 22147 includes a genome of 2,381,859 bp (38.0% GC content) without any plasmids.