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. 2021 Jun 24;16(6):e0251508. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251508

Molecular characterization of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii clinical isolates from Egyptian patients

Reem M Hassan 1, Sherifa T Salem 1, Saly Ismail Mostafa Hassan 2, Asmaa Sayed Hegab 3,*, Yasmine S Elkholy 3
Editor: Yung-Fu Chang4
PMCID: PMC8224909  PMID: 34166384

Abstract

Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii) represents a global threat owing to its ability to resist most of the currently available antimicrobial agents. Moreover, emergence of carbapenem resistant A. baumannii (CR-AB) isolates limits the available treatment options. Enzymatic degradation by variety of ß-lactamases, have been identified as the most common mechanism of carbapenem resistance in A. baumannii. The alarming increase in the prevalence of CR-AB necessitates continuous screening and molecular characterization to appreciate the problem. The present study was performed to assess the prevalence and characterize carbapenemases among 206 CR-AB isolated from various clinical specimens collected from different intensive care units at Kasr Al-Aini Hospital. All isolates were confirmed to be A. baumannii by detection of the blaOXA-51-like gene. Molecular screening of 13 common Ambler class bla carbapenemases genes in addition to insertion sequence (IS-1) upstream OXA-23 were performed by using four sets of multiplex PCR, followed by identification using gene sequencing technology. Among the investigated genes, the prevalence of blaOXA-23, and blaOXA-58 were 77.7%, and 1.9%, respectively. The ISAba1 was detected in 10% of the blaOXA-23 positive isolates. The prevalence of metallo-β-lactamases (MBLs) studied; blaNDM-1, blaSPM, blaVIM, blaSIM-1 were 11.7%, 6.3%, 0.5%, and 0.5% respectively. One of class A; bla KPC was detected in 10.7% of the investigated isolates. blaOXA-24/40, blaIMP, blaGES, blaVEB and blaGIM were not detected in any of the studied isolates. Moreover, 18.4% of the isolates have shown to harbor two or more of the screened bla genes. We concluded that the most prevalent type of ß-lactamases genes among CR-AB isolates collected from Egyptian patients were blaOXA-23 followed by blaNDM-1 and blaKPC.

Introduction

A. baumannii has been identified as an opportunistic nosocomial pathogen, which is tolerant to wide ranges of temperature, pH, and humidity and is able to survive on dry surfaces for months, so it is recognized as a real challenge to infection control measures [1]. It causes a wide variety of infections including pneumonia, urinary tract infection, skin and soft tissue infections, central line associated bloodstream infections and others [2].

A. baumannii represents a global threat owing to its ability to resist most of the currently available antimicrobial agents including ß- lactams, fluoroquinolones and aminoglycosides [3]. Un-regulated use of antibiotics in healthcare settings results in emergence of multidrug- resistance added to the intrinsic resistance of A. baumannii especially in intensive care units [4]. Moreover, emergence of carbapenem resistant A. baumannii isolates limit the available treatment options for such infections [5].

The most common mechanism responsible for carbapenem resistance among A. bauminii is enzymatic degradation by variety of ß-lactamases, the four β-lactamase classes (A, B, C and D) have been detected in A. baumannii [68].

Two intrinsic types of ß-lactamases can be identified in almost all A. baumannii isolates: AmpC-type cephalosporinases and OXA-51/69 variants. Both of which are chromosomally located, and have little impact on carbapenems, if any [9].

However, higher carbapenem hydrolysis rates have been reported to result from the acquisition of insertion sequences (ISs) that affect the expression of blaOXA genes encoding oxacillinases [10]. These elements are the most abundant transposable elements capable of causing mutations and rearrangements in the genome, contributing to the spread of resistance and virulence determinants among bacterial species [11]. Insertion sequence A. baumannii-1 (ISAba1) upstream blaOXA-51 like genes, belong to the IS4 family and has been associated with increased gene expression and hence carbapenem resistance [8,12].

Till date, carbapenem-hydrolyzing class D β-lactamases, the so called (CHDLs) also named oxacillinases (OXAs) for their effect on oxacillin [13] seem to be the most common mechanism of carbapenem resistance in A. baumannii [8]. Class D β-lactamases, includes six subgroups.

The intrinsic OXA-51 and the acquired OXA-23-like, OXA-58-like, OXA-24/40-like, OXA-235-like and OXA-143-like β-lactamases [13].

Additionally, class B β-lactamases, also known as MBLs play a less important yet more potent role in carbapenem resistance among A. baumannii isolates [14].

Four MBLs are known in A. baumannii: New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM), Imipenemase (IMP), Seoul Imipenemase (SIM) and Verona integron-encoded metallo-β-lactamase (VIM) [14,15]. Two variants of NDM (NDM-1 and NDM-2) have been reported in A. baumannii clinical isolates in Egypt [16,17].

Moreover, β-lactamases belonging to class A including blaKPC and blaGES were also incriminated of carbapenem resistance among A. baumannii [18].

Other ESBLs were identified among A.baumannii isolates and confer resistance to broad spectrum cephalosporins e.g. blaPER, blaVEB and others [19].

Despite of the global increase at alarming rates of CR-AB, few studies were devoted to this organism in Egypt [2022]. More data are crucial to appreciate the problem objectively and to control further evolution of CR-AB.

The aim of the present study was to characterize and to assess the prevalence of carbapenemases among 206 CR-AB clinical isolates from Egyptian patients.

Materials and methods

Being a teaching hospital, before admission every patient gives an informed consent. Samples were collected for diagnostic purposes and were furtherly investigated for better analysis of antimicrobial resistance to allow control. This cross- sectional study involved a total of 206 clinical, non-duplicate, isolates of CR-AB which were collected over one year duration from December 2018 to December 2019. The research study was approved by the institutional Review Board of Kasr Al-Aini Hospital and the Research Ethics Committee at Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University.

I. Bacterial isolates

The isolates were collected at the central microbiology laboratory at Kasr Al-Aini Hospital. The isolates were obtained from different clinical specimens, including wound swabs, respiratory secretions, blood cultures, urine samples and others including body fluid and drains collected from inpatients admitted at intensive care units and other different departments at Kasr Al-Aini Hospital.

The isolates were identified phenotypically by colonial morphology, Gram- staining and conventional biochemical testing. All isolates grown as lactose non fermenter colonies on MacConkey agar, appearing Gram negative coccobaciili were preliminary identified as Acinetobater spp. [23].

II. Carbapenem susceptibility testing

Carbapenem susceptibility testing for the initially identified Acinetobacter clinical isolates was done by the standard disc diffusion technique on Müller-Hinton agar using imipenem and meropenem discs (Oxoid, Basingstoke, United Kingdom), and interpreted following the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) [24].

III. Molecular identification

All CR-AB isolates were selected and submitted to DNA extraction by the heat shock method, followed by genotypic identification of A. baumannii by detection of the blaOXA-51-like gene [25]. The 206 isolates were confirmed to be A. baumannii were further investigated.

IV. Molecular detection of different carbapenemases encoding genes and insertion sequence (IS) blaOXA-23

Four sets of multiplex PCR were done including common Ambler class bla genes that cause carbapenem resistance; multiplex 1 included blaOXA-23, blaOXA-24 and blaOXA-58 [26,27], multiplex 2 included blaVIM, blaKPC and blaIMP, multiplex 3 included blaGES, blaPER and blaVEB [28], while multiplex 4 contained blaGIM, blaSIM-1, blaSPM and blaNDM-1 [28,29]. Presence of ISAba1 upstream of blaOXA-23 was investigated using ISAba1F/OXA-23-likeR [12]. PCR was performed using PCR-EZ D-PCR Master Mix (Bio Basic Inc., Canada) in a Bio-Rad Thermal Cycler PTC-200. Briefly, an initial denaturation step of 95°C for 15 min, followed by 30 cycles of denaturation at 94°C for 30 sec, an annealing temperature dependent on the melting temperature of the primer pair (multiplex I and ISAba1F/OXA-23-likeR: 52°C; multiplex II and III: 57°C and multiplex IV: 60°C) and extension at 72°C for 90 sec, followed by the final extension step at 70°C for 10 min. A negative control (sterile nuclease free water) was included for all PCR assays. Amplified PCR products were purified using PureLink® PCR Purification Kit (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA) according to manufacturer’s instructions. A BigDye Terminator v3.1 cycle sequencing kit (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA) was used to sequence the PCR amplified products from the positive cases according to manufacturer’s instructions. The sequenced products were run on a 3500 Genetic Analyzer (Applied Biosystems). Sequences were compared with those available in the GenBank database using the basic local alignment search tool (BLAST, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).

Results

A total of 206 clinical isolates of CR-AB were collected from different clinical specimens mainly from different ICUs (n = 154, 74.8%) at Kasr Al-Aini Hospital. Most of the CR-AB detected were isolated from wound swabs (n = 77), respiratory secretions (n = 56), blood cultures (n = 37), and urine samples (n = 27) (Table 1).

Table 1. Distribution of A. baumannii isolates among different clinical specimens.

Clinical Specimen A. baumannii isolates
N (%)
Wound discharge 77 (37.4%)
Respiratory secretions 56 (27.2%)
Blood 37 (18.0%)
Urine 27 (13.1%)
Others (body fluids, drains) 9 (4.4%)

All isolates were confirmed to be A. bauminii by detecting blaOXA-51-like gene among all (100%) the studied isolates (Table 2).

Table 2. Distribution of different bla gene classes and genes among the CR-AB isolates.

bla class bla gene A. baumannii isolates
N (%)
Class A blaKPC 22 (10.7%)
blaGES 0 (0.0%)
Class-B blaVIM 1 (0.5%)
blaIMP 0 (0.0%)
blaGIM 0 (0.0%)
blaSPM 13 (6.3%)
blaSIM-1 1 (0.5%)
blaNDM-1 24 (11.7%)
Class D blaOXA-51 206 (100%)
blaOXA-23 160 (77.7%)
blaOXA-24/40 0 (0.0%)
blaOXA-58 4 (1.9%)
Other beta-lactamases blaPER 2 (1.0%)
blaVEB 0 (0.0%)
ISAb1 upstream of blaOXA-23 16 (7.8%)

Among the investigated genes, class D blaOXA-23 was the most commonly detected gene (77.7%) and the ISAba1was detected only in 10% of the blaOXA-23 positive isolates.

One of the MBLs; blaNDM was detected in 11.7%, and one of class A; blaKPC was detected in 10.7% of the investigated isolates. Other carbapenemases were detected at lower frequencies. However, five of the investigated genes (blaOXA-24, blaIMP, blaGES, blaVEB and blaGIM) were not detected in any of the studied isolates (Table 2).

Although most of the studied CR-AB isolates were detected in specimens from different ICUs, there was no significant difference in the prevalence of the investigated genes in clinical specimens collected from the ICUs and specimens collected from other departments (Table 3).

Table 3. Difference in distribution of bla genes among CR-AB isolates from ICU and non-ICU clinical specimens.

bla gene ICU- Clinical specimens
N (%)
Non-ICU Clinical Specimens
N (%)
P-value
OXA-23 125 (81.2%) 35 (67.3%) 0.038
OXA- 58 3 (1.9%) 1 (1.9%) 1.000
VIM 1 (0.6%) 0 (0.0%) 1.000
KPC 13 (8.4%) 9 (17.3%) 0.073
PER 1 (0.6%) 1 (1.9%) 0.442
SPM 12 (7.8%) 1 (1.9%) 0.191
SIM-1 1 (0.6%) 0 (0.0%) 1.000
NDM-1 16 (10.4%) 8 (15.4%) 0.332
ISABA1 10 (6.5%) 6 (11.5%) 0.240

Moreover, 18.4% of the isolates (n = 38) have shown to harbor two or more of the tested bla genes (Table 4).

Table 4. CR-AB isolates harbor more than one of the bla genes.

bla genes CR-AB isolates harbor more than one bla genes
(N = 38)
OXA-23, KPC 10
OXA-23, NDM 6
OXA-23, SPM 6
OXA23, KPC, NDM 6
OXA-58, NDM 3
OXA-23, PER 2
OXA-23, NDM, SPM 2
OXA-23, SIM 1
OXA-23, OXA-58, KPC 1
OXA-23, NDM, VIM 1

Discussion

Outlining the genetic background of carbapenem resistance among 206 A. baumannii isolates collected from Kasr Al Aini Hospital, one of the largest tertiary care hospitals in Egypt, was the main scope of the present study. As proved by other studies, bla OXA-51, is an oxacillinase present in all A. baumannii isolates. Luckily, it is too weak to confer by itself carbapenem resistance. However, it is frequently used to confirm the identity of A.baumannii [27,30]. All the investigated isolates of our study were confirmed to harbor this gene.

In concordance with other studies, the most common carbapenemase gene was blaOXA-23 that belongs to Class D β-lactamases. In the present study, it was detected in 77.7% of the investigated isolates. In Egypt, a study in Zagazig University Hospitals reported that 90% of 50 carbapenem resistant A. baumannii isolates were found to harbor blaOXA-23 [31]. Obviously, the higher carriage rate in the later study may be attributed to the fact that all isolates were collected from surgical ICUs, whereas in our study the investigated isolates were isolated from both ICU and non-ICU settings. Other studies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia showed higher prevalence rate (100%) of blaOXA-23 among carbapenem resistant A. baumannii isolates [32,33]. ISAba1 was detected upstream blaOXA-23 gene only in 10% of the blaOXA-23 positive isolates. These findings confirmed that the blaOXA-23 gene could be located on the chromosome or on a plasmid [34]. We can conclude that the current worldwide dissemination of the blaOXA-23 gene is associated with different genetic structures and plasmids. The dynamic spread of blaOXA-23 will make it difficult to control because this spread is not associated with a single entity [35].

Within the same class, class D β-lactamases, blaOXA-58 was detected only among 1.9% of our studied isolates. Closely related to our results, other studies in Egypt, in USA, and in Palestine could detect blaOXA-58 among 1.4%, 2%, and 3% respectively among carbapenem resistant A. baumannii investigated isolates [22,36,37]. However, another Egyptian study could not find the former gene among any of their studied carbapenem resistant A. baumannii isolates [38]. Although, a higher blaOXA-58 prevalence was reported among carbapenem resistant A. baumannii isolates in Egypt (9.1%) [39] and Algeria (14.7%) [40]. Therefore, more studies are needed from different region in Egypt and moreover from different countries before we can conclude that the prevalence of blaOXA-58 is low among carbapenem resistant A. baumannii.

Till date the most common carbapenemsases are carbapenem-hydrolyzing class D β-lactamases (CHDLs) and, to a lesser extent, MBLs. Although MBLs has been reported in sporadic parts of the world [41], most of MBLs were first described in A. baumannii in Egypt [16,17,42] then emerged in the middle east [43]. In the present study MBLs were detected in 19% of the investigated isolates; with blaNDM accounts for 11.7%, blaSPM 6.3%, blaVIM 0.5%, and blaSIM 0.5%. Nevertheless, in the present study, none of the A. baumannii isolates were found to harbor blaIMP, nor blaGIM.

In Egypt, many authors have reported different prevalence of MBLs in A. baumannii. Elkasaby and El Sayed Zaki, (2017) reported that among 280 A. baumannii isolates collected from Egyptian patients admitted to Mansoura University Hospital ICU, 95% harbored MBLs, of which, blaIMP accounted for 95.7%. However, the authors did not investigate blaNDM among the studied isolates [21]. Another Egyptian study has detected blaNDM among 66.7% of 50 A.baumannii isolates. Yet, the former study didn’t find neither blaIPM nor blaVIM among the tested isolates [31]. Another study in Egypt has shown that blaNDM accounted for carbapenem resistance in 27.58%, and blaVIM in 10.3% of studied isolates [20]. Two MBLs: blaVIM and blaNDM were detected in 100% and 12.1% respectively in seventy-four CR-AB investigated isolates, collected from different clinical specimens at Alexandria University Hospital [32]. In Palestine Handal and colleagues reported that blaNDM was detected among 5.8% of 69 carbapenem resistant A. baumannii isolates [37].

In the present study, two of the Class A carbapenemases, namely blaKPC and blaGES were tested. While none of isolates were shown to harbor blaGES, blaKPC was detected in 10.7% of the investigated isolates. Opposing results were detected in other Egyptian studies; bla KPC was not detected among 40 carbapenem resistant A. baumannii isolates collected from 2 hospitals in Egypt [22,32], while blaGES was detected among 50% of the investigated isolates in the later same study [31].

Conclusion

We can conclude that the worldwide spread of carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii has become a real global health threat. Among the investigated isolates in the present study CR-AB were confirmed by detection of blaOXA-51. Class D carbapenemase blaOXA-23 was the most prevalent followed by blaNDM-1 belonging to class B MBLs and class A blaKPC. In this study, ISAba1 was detected upstream 10% of blaOXA-23 positive isolates only which indicates that the spread of resistance among Acinetobacter isolates could be either chromosomal or plamid- mediated. Further investigations should be continuing to appreciate the reality of the problem of multi-drug resistant A. baumannii.

Supporting information

S1 File

(XLS)

S2 File

(XLS)

S3 File

(XLS)

Data Availability

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information files.

Funding Statement

The author received no specific funding for this work.

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Decision Letter 0

Yung-Fu Chang

16 Mar 2021

PONE-D-21-03383

Molecular Characterization of Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Clinical Isolates from Egyptian Patients

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr.Hegab,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Your manuscript has been reviewed by an expert in your field. A minor revision is suggested before a decision  can be made. Please follow the suggestions and make all necessary revision. 

Please submit your revised manuscript by two weeks. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

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If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Yung-Fu Chang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Whilst you may use any professional scientific editing service of your choice, PLOS has partnered with both American Journal Experts (AJE) and Editage to provide discounted services to PLOS authors. Both organizations have experience helping authors meet PLOS guidelines and can provide language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure formatting to ensure your manuscript meets our submission guidelines. To take advantage of our partnership with AJE, visit the AJE website (http://learn.aje.com/plos/) for a 15% discount off AJE services. To take advantage of our partnership with Editage, visit the Editage website (www.editage.com) and enter referral code PLOSEDIT for a 15% discount off Editage services.  If the PLOS editorial team finds any language issues in text that either AJE or Editage has edited, the service provider will re-edit the text for free.

Upon resubmission, please provide the following:

  • The name of the colleague or the details of the professional service that edited your manuscript

  • A copy of your manuscript showing your changes by either highlighting them or using track changes (uploaded as a *supporting information* file)

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[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Authors should move Result section after Materials and Methods.

The name of the table is written above and not below (table 2 and 4) and without extra space (line 112).

In discussion it would be important to compare the obtained results with data from neighboring geographical areas, eg Southeast Europe and Mediterranean (Goic-Barisic et al 2021; Djahmi N, et al. 2014.)

The prefix bla (OXA...) must be written in italics.

**********

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If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Decision Letter 1

Yung-Fu Chang

28 Apr 2021

Molecular Characterization of Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Clinical Isolates from Egyptian Patients

PONE-D-21-03383R1

Dear Dr. Hegab,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Yung-Fu Chang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Acceptance letter

Yung-Fu Chang

16 Jun 2021

PONE-D-21-03383R1

Molecular Characterization of Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Clinical Isolates from Egyptian Patients

Dear Dr. Hegab:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Yung-Fu Chang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Associated Data

    This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

    Supplementary Materials

    S1 File

    (XLS)

    S2 File

    (XLS)

    S3 File

    (XLS)

    Attachment

    Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

    Data Availability Statement

    All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information files.


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