Epidemiology of Plasmids in and with Acquired Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase Genes Isolated from Chronic Wounds in Ghana.

Little information is available on the local epidemiology of mobile genetic elements such as plasmids harboring acquired beta-lactamase genes in Western African Ghana. In the present study, we screened for plasmids in three and four isolates expressing extended spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL) mediated by the gene from chronically infected wounds of Ghanaian patients. Bacterial isolates were subjected to combined short-read and long-read sequencing to obtain the sequences of their respective plasmids. In the -gene-carrying plasmids of the four ESBL-positive isolates, IncFIB/IncFII ( = 3) and FIA ( = 1) sequences were detected, while in the -gene-carrying plasmids of the three ESBL-positive isolates, IncFIA/IncFIB ( = 2) and IncFIB ( = 1) sequences were found. The three IncFIB/IncFII sequence-containing plasmids were almost identical to a plasmid reported from France. They belonged to the clonal lineages ST17, ST36 and ST39 of , suggesting transversal spread of this obviously evolutionary successful plasmid in Ghana. Other resistance gene-encoding plasmids observed in the assessed Enterobacterales harbored IncFIA/IncR and IncFII sequences. International spread was confirmed by the high genetic similarity to resistance-mediating plasmids published from Asia, Australia, Europe and Northern America, including a -gene-carrying plasmid isolated from a wild bird in Germany. In conclusion, the study contributed to the scarcely available information on the epidemiology of third-generation cephalosporine resistance-mediating plasmids in Ghana. Furthermore, the global spread of resistance-mediating plasmids provided hints on the evolutionary success of individual resistance-harboring plasmids by transversal spread among lineages in Ghana.