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Purpose: To determine the epidemiology characteristics of intestinal colonization of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) among inpatients in a pediatric hospital in China. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted from April to December 2019. Medical records were reviewed to extract the clinical information. Antimicrobial susceptibility was performed by broth microdilution method. Drug resistance determinants and plasmid types were analyzed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and Enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus sequences PCR (ERIC-PCR) were employed to determine the genetic relationships between strains. Results: A total of 90 CRE strains were isolated, with a fecal carriage rate of 8.6% (90/1052), and mainly distributed in E. aerogenes (n=30), K. pneumoniae (n=25) and E. coli (n=23). More than 50% of CRE colonizers had a history of invasive procedures and antibiotic exposures. As high as 91.1% (82/90) of CRE isolates carried carbapenemase genes, with blaNDM-5 (n=56) being the most common, and mainly found in E. aerogenes (51.8%, 29/56) and E. coli (32.1%, 18/56) isolates, which primarily belonged to ST4 (100%, 29/29) and ST692 (55.6%, 10/18), respectively. Followed by blaKPC-2 (n=12), and all found in K. pneumoniae ST11 isolates. Other carbapenemase genes including blaNDM-1, blaIMP-4 and blaIMP-26. Meanwhile, ESBL genes (blaCTX-M, blaTEM-1 and blaSHV) and AmpC genes (blaDHA-1 and blaEBC) were also detected. All CRE isolates showed high resistance to cephalosporins and carbapenemases (97.8%-100.0%) but remained susceptible to tigecycline (98.9%). IncX3 was a major plasmid type in NDM-containing strains (91.3%), and 91.7% of KPC-2-producing K. pneumoniae harboring IncFII and IncFIB plasmids. The ERIC-PCR revealed that several strains with identical STs were genetically similar. Conclusion: This study revealed a major intestinal colonization of ST4 NDM-5 E. aerogenes, ST11 KPC-2 K. pneumoniae and ST692 NDM-5 E. coli strains among inpatients in a pediatric hospital. Infection control measures should be implemented immediately to prevent the spread of these strains in clinical settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae is the most common pathogen causing death in children under 5 years old. This retrospective surveillance aimed to analyze serotype distribution, drug resistance, virulence factors, and molecular characteristics of pneumonia isolates from children in Shanghai, China. Methods: A total of 287 clinical pneumococcal isolates were collected from January to December in 2018 and were divided into community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and healthcare-associated pneumonia (HAP) two groups according to where someone contracts the infection. All isolates were serotyped by multiplex sequential PCR and antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed using E-test or disk diffusion method. The molecular epidemiology was analyzed using multilocus sequence typing and seven housekeeping genes were sequenced to identified the sequence types (STs). In addition, we investigated the presence of virulence genes via PCR. Results: The most common serotypes were 19F, 6A, 19A, 23F, 14, and 6B, and the coverage rates of the 7-, 10- and 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccines were 58.9, 58.9, and 80.5%, respectively. More PCV13/non-PCV7 serotypes and higher rate of penicillin non-susceptible S. pneumoniae were seen in HAP. Molecular epidemiological typing showed a high level of diversity and five international antibiotic-resistant clones were found, including Taiwan19F-14, Spain23F-1, Spain6B-2, Taiwan23F-15 and Sweden15A-25. No significant difference was observed in the presence of virulence genes among the isolates obtained from CAP and HAP. All of the S. pneumoniae isolates carried lytA, ply, psaA, pavA, spxB, htrA , and clpP , and the carriage rate of nanA and piaA were 96.2 and 99.0%. Conversely, cps2A, cbpA , and pspA were present in 33.8–44.3% of the isolates. Conclusions: Serotype changes and emerging multidrug-resistant international clones were found in current study. lytA, ply, psaA, pavA, spxB, htrA , and clpP may be good protein vaccine candidates. Long-term high-quality surveillance should be conducted to assess impact and effectiveness brought by vaccines, and provide a foundation for prevention strategies and vaccine policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International stock market forms an abstract complex network through the fluctuation correlation of stock price index. Past studies of complex network almost focus on single country’s stock market. Here we investigate the whole and partial characteristics of international stock market network (ISMN) (hereinafter referred to as ISMN). For the analysis on the whole network, we firstly determine the reasonable threshold as the basic of the following study. Robustness is applied to analyze the stability of the network and the result shows that ISMN has robustness against random attack but intentional attack breaks the connection integrity of ISMN rapidly. In the partial network, the sliding window method is used to analyze the dynamic evolution of the relationship between the Chinese (Shanghai) stock market and the international stock market. The connection between the Chinese stock market and foreign stock markets becomes increasingly closer, and the links between them show a significant enhancement especially after China joined the WTO. In general, we suggest that transnational investors pay more attention to some significant event of the stock market with large degree for better risk-circumvention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The predominant carbapenemase of Klebsiella pneumoniae in paediatric patients in Shanghai were KPC-2 and NDM-5. • KPC-2 producers have higher resistance rates to fluoroquinolones and aminoglycosides than NDM-5 producers. • KL47 ST11 KPC-2-KP and KL62 ST48 NDM-5-KP were representative clonal lineages. • Although not the majority, some strains do carry various hypervirulence factors, and the profiles of these genes shown high diversity. We investigated the epidemiological characteristics of drug resistance and virulence factors of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) isolates from paediatric patients in Shanghai. CRKP strains were consecutively collected between January and December in 2018. Antimicrobial susceptibility was determined by VITEK 2 compact. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to analyse drug resistance determinants, virulence genes and plasmid types. wzi sequencing and multilocus sequence typing was used to determine clonal relatedness. Among 172 CRKP strains, bla KPC-2 and bla NDM-5 were the predominant carbapenemase genes. Compared with NDM-5, KPC-2 producers showed higher resistance rates to fluoroquinolones and aminoglycosides. The majority of KPC-2 producers belonged to KL64-ST11 background, while NDM-5 producers were mainly identified as KL62-ST48. Plasmid typing shown that IncF and IncFIB were the most prevalent plasmids in KPC-2 producers and IncX3 was widely spread in NDM-5-KP. Thirty-seven isolates carried various hypervirulence genes and the profiles of these genes showed high diversity. The predominant carbapenemase of CRKP strains from paediatric patients in Shanghai were KPC-2 and NDM-5. KL47-ST11 KPC-2-KP and KL62-ST48 NDM-5-KP were representative clonal lineages. Although not prevalent, hypervirulence associated genes have begun to spread. Active long-term surveillance should be performed in both drug resistance characteristics and virulence factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]