Molecular epidemiology of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in South America Rodríguez, Carlos Hernán and Balderrama Yarhui, Norah and Nastro, Marcela and Nuñez Quezada, Tamara and Castro Cañarte, Glenda and Magne Ventura, Raquel and Ugarte Cuba, Tayita and Valenzuela, Natalia and Roach, Freddy and Mota, María Inés and Burger, Noelia and Velázquez Aguayo, Gladys and Ortellado-Canese, Juana and Bruni, Geni and Pandolfo, Cecilia and Bastyas, Nadya and Famiglietti, Angela,, 65, 1088-1091 (2016), doi = https://doi.org/10.1099/jmm.0.000328, publicationName = Microbiology Society, issn = 0022-2615, abstract= One hundred and twenty-six epidemiologically sequential, unrelated, carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii isolates from nine hospitals in six countries of South America were collected between July 2013 and June 2014. Genes coding for Ambler class D and B carbapenemases were sought by PCR. All isolates were typed using the 3-locus sequence typing and bla OXA-51-like sequence-based typing techniques. The bla OXA-23 gene was recovered in all the participating hospitals and in all the isolates of seven of nine medical centres. The bla OXA-72 gene was only recovered in the two medical centres from Guayaquil city, Ecuador. Trilocus sequence typing revealed the presence of sequence groups SG2, SG4 and SG5. bla OXA-51-like sequence-based typing revealed the presence of bla OXA-132, bla OXA-65, bla OXA-69 and bla OXA-64. Our results showed that the population of carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii in South America was principally associated with ST79, ST25 and ST15 (92 %) and harboured the bla OXA-23 gene mainly. CC2 was not detected., language=, type=