713. Prevalence of Microbicide Resistance Genes in Clinical Isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii

BACKGROUND: The persistence of Acinetobacter on different surfaces and the continuous exposure of bacteria to disinfectants such as quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) in the healthcare environment have led to microbicide tolerance. Acinetobacter baumannii have also rapidly acquired carbapenem resistance. Here we determined the prevalence of microbicide resistance genes in carbapenem susceptible and resistant clinical isolates of Acinetobacter. METHODS: All clinical isolates were collected from two separate hospitals in Detroit between 2017-2021. Following DNA isolation using Qiagen kit, Nextera Flex kit was used for library preparation of Acinetobacter clinical isolates. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) was performed via Illumina NextSeq 550 using the prepared DNA library. The FASTQ files from the sequencing run were then subjected to bioinformatic analysis with Bionumerics software v7.6. ResFinder was used for determination of presence or absence of QAC resistant genes and results were tabulated by Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAb) or Carbapenem-Susceptible Acinetobacter baumannii (CSAb) with or without the QAC resistant genes. RESULTS: Out of the 139 Acinetobacter patient isolates, 70/139 (50.4%) were CRAb containing carbapenemase blaOXA-23 and 69/139 (49.6%) belonged to CSAb (Table 1). Figure 1. shows the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes in CRAb and CSAb isolates with qacE genes. For CRAb isolates, 56% had qacE genes while 39% of CSAb had qacE genes. About 42% of CRAb isolates were multi-drug resistant (MDR), indicating a prevalence of qacE genes among the MDR isolates. Table 2 shows the presence of qacE genes by sequence type (ST). In the ST2 (Pasteur) and ST406 (Pasteur) strains, qacE gene was mainly present. Interestingly, most of the Acinetobacter isolates that belong to ST2 (ST195 and ST281, Oxford) are CRAb with qacE gene. [Figure: see text] [Figure: see text] [Figure: see text] CONCLUSION: Clinical isolates in our study had an even distribution of both CRAb and CSAb. The presence of qacE gene was more prevalent in the CRAb isolates compared to the CSAb isolates. While different STs harbored the qacE gene, the prevalence of qacE gene was highest in ST2 among all isolates. Future studies are needed to determine the reduced susceptibility to other commonly used hospital disinfectants. DISCLOSURES: Keith S. Kaye, MD, MPH, Abbvie: Advisor/Consultant|Abbvie: Honoraria|Entasis: Advisor/Consultant|Entasis: Honoraria|GSK: Advisor/Consultant|GSK: Honoraria|Merck: Advisor/Consultant|Merck: Honoraria|Shionogi: Advisor/Consultant|Shionogi: Honoraria|VenatoRx: Advisor/Consultant|VenatoRx: Honoraria