Clinical and Genomic Characteristics of a Clinical Listeria Monocytogenes ST120 Isolate Recovered from a Pregnant Woman

Jingrui Zhang,1,* Zengbin Liu,2,* Zhirong Li,2 Caihong Xu,1 Hongbin Wang,3 Rugang Yang,1 Li Liu1 1Department of Clinical Laboratory, The Fourth Hospital of Shijiazhuang, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Clinical Laboratory, The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, The Fourth Hospital of Shijiazhuang, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Jingrui Zhang; Li Liu, The Fourth Hospital of Shijiazhuang, Shijiazhuang, 050000, People’s Republic of China, Email jingrui20005@163.com; liuliok2012@163.comBackground: Maternal–fetal listeriosis, caused by Listeria monocytogenes, is a rare but serious infection. Herein, we report the clinical and genomic characteristics of a clinical L. monocytogenes ST120 isolate recovered from a pregnant woman.Methods: The clinical symptoms and treatment in pregnant woman were described in detail. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) was performed on the L. monocytogenes isolate SJZ_LM001, and the genomic characterization of the isolate was deeply analyzed.Results: The clinical symptoms in pregnant women were mainly fever, and the placenta experienced severe inflammation. The pregnant woman was treated with ampicillin for effective anti-infective therapy. Genomic analysis showed that isolate SJZ_LM001 is sequence type (ST) 120, belong to clonal complex (CC)8 and lineage II of L. monocytogenes. Additionally, the isolates SJZ_LM001 harbored a novel plasmid pSJZ_LM001, which carried arsenical resistance genes (arsACD and acr3), and cadmium resistance genes (cadAC). Drug susceptibility testing showed that the isolate SJZ-LM001 was susceptible to ampicillin, meropenem, penicillin, and cotrimoxazole.Conclusion: This is the first to identify a clinical case of infection in a pregnant woman caused by ST120 L. monocytogenes in China. These findings could benefit our understanding of the genomic characteristics of L. monocytogenes, and the pregnancy-related listeriosis and providing early diagnosis and effective targeted treatment.Keywords: Listeria monocytogenes, whole genome sequence, ST120, plasmid