Background
Multi-drug resistant (MDR) Acinetobacter baumannii is an important cause of hospital acquired infection and often increases mortality and length of stay[1–3]. The mechanisms of resistance include: (1) antimicrobial-inactivating enzymes such as □-lactamases, (2) alteration of membrane porin channels, and (3) mutations that change cellular functions [4]. Accurate genotyping and correlation to antimicrobial susceptibility will help prevent and treat outbreaks of Acinetobacter.
The genome of A. baumannii ranges from 3.2 Megabases (Mb) in the drug sensitive SDF strain up to 3.9 Mb in the MDR AYE strain. A surprisingly high proportion of baumannii ORFs, (15%-20%), are located in resistance islands or “alien islands” - long stretches of DNA acquired from a foreign source. The MDR AYE strain has an 86Kb island containing 45-50 drug resistance genes located in an insertion hotspot [5]. Our study aims to sequence several A. baumanni i isolates from Metro Nashville General (NGH) Hospital and conduct a strain-to-reference genomic characterization of clinical virulence factors.