NDM-1 is an enzyme in some strains of bacteria that confers resistance to a broad range of beta-lactam antibiotics. These include the antibiotics of the carbapenem family, which are a mainstay for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. The gene for NDM-1 is one member of a large gene family that encodes beta-lactamase enzymes called carbapenemases. Bacteria that produce carbapenemases are often referred to in the news media as "superbugs" because infections caused by them are difficult to treat. Such bacteria are usually sensitive only to polymyxins and tigecycline. NDM-1 was first detected in 2008 in a culture plate of Klebsiella pneumoniae isolated from a Swedish patient of Indian origin. It was later detected in bacteria in India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Japan, Egypt, and Iraq. The most common bacteria that make this enzyme are gram-negative such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae, but the gene for NDM-1 can spread from one strain of bacteria to another by horizontal gene transfer.
Enzyme function
Carbapenems are a class of beta-lactam antibiotics that are capable of killing most bacteria by inhibiting the synthesis of one of their cell wall layers. The carbapenems were developed to overcome antibiotic resistance mediated by bacterial beta-lactamase enzymes. However, the blaNDM-1 gene produces NDM-1, which is a carbapenemase beta-lactamase—an enzyme that hydrolyzes and inactivates these carbapenem antibiotics. Carbapenemases are particularly dangerous resistance mechanisms, since they can inactivate a wide range of different antibiotics. The NDM-1 enzyme is one of the class B metallo-beta-lactamase; other types of carbapenemase are class A or class D beta-lactamases. (The class A Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC) is currently the most common carbapenemase, which was first detected in North Carolina, United States, in 1996 and has since spread worldwide. A later publication indicated that Enterobacteriaceae that produce KPC were becoming common in the United States.) The resistance conferred by this gene (blaNDM-1), therefore, aids the expansion of bacteria that carry it throughout a human host, since they will face less opposition/competition from populations of antibiotic-sensitive bacteria, which will be diminished by the original antibacterial treatment.
NDM-1 functions through two zinc ions present in the active site that cause hydrolysis of the beta-lactams, rendering them ineffective. Experimental data has shown that zinc chelators can prevent the hydrolysis of beta-lactams mediated by metallo-beta-lactamases.
Origin and spread The NDM-1 enzyme was named after New Delhi, the capital city of India, as it was first described by Yong et al. in December 2009 in a Swedish national who fell ill with an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection that he acquired in India. The infection was identified as a carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae strain bearing the novel gene blaNDM-1. The authors concluded that the new resistance mechanism "clearly arose in India, but there are few data arising from India to suggest how widespread it is". Its exact geographical origin, however, has not been conclusively verified. In March 2010, a study in a hospital in Mumbai found that most carbapenem-resistant bacteria isolated from patients carried the blaNDM-1 gene. Later, the journal editor apologized for allowing the name. NDM-1 β-lactamase was also found in a K. pneumoniae isolate from Croatia, and the patient arrived from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The second geographical origin is considered to be eastern Balkans. In May 2010, a case of infection with E. coli expressing NDM-1 was reported in Coventry in the United Kingdom. The patient was a man of Indian origin who had visited India 18 months previously, where he had undergone dialysis. In initial assays the bacterium was fully resistant to all antibiotics tested, while later tests found that it was susceptible to tigecycline and colistin. The authors warned that international travel and patients' use of multiple countries' healthcare systems could lead to the "rapid spread of NDM-1 with potentially serious consequences". As of June 2010, there were three reported cases of Enterobacteriaceae isolates bearing this newly described resistance mechanism in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that "All three U.S. isolates were from patients having received recent medical care in India." However, US experts stated that it is unclear as to whether this strain is any more dangerous than existing antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which are already common in the USA.
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