Antimicrobial susceptibility and fluctuations in clonal complexes of serogroup 6 Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates collected from children in Beijing, China, between 1997 and 2016

This study examined the antimicrobial susceptibility patterns and clonal complex (CC) characteristics of serogroup 6 Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates collected from children in Beijing, China, between 1997 and 2016. Serotypes were determined using the Quellung reaction, and the antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of the isolates were determined using the disc-diffusion method or by E-test. Sequence types (STs) were assigned based on multilocus sequence typing. A total of 250 isolates were examined, with 55.2%, 30.0%, 12.8%, and 2.0% of isolates identified as serotypes 6A, 6B, 6C, and 6D, respectively. All of the isolates were susceptible to levofloxacin and vancomycin, and the non-suceptibitility rate to penicillin was 41.6%. Eighty-two distinct STs, assigned to 13 CCs and 28 singletons, were identified. CC982 was the most prevalent CC amongst serotype 6A isolates (34%), followed by CC9789 and CC3173. Amongst serotype 6B isolates, CC90 and CC4542 were the most common, accounting for 25.3% and 14.7% of isolates respectively. Over the study period, the prevalence of CC982, CC4542, and CC4536 isolates showing susceptibility to penicillin and cefuroxime decreased, and the proportion of CC3173, CC9789, CC855, and CC902 isolates showing non-susceptibility to these two antibiotics increased.