High Prevalence of <i>qnr</i> Genes in Commensal Enterobacteria from Healthy Children in Peru and Bolivia

Abstract

ABSTRACT A remarkable prevalence of qnrB (54%) and, at a lower level, of qnrS (14%) was discovered in pools of commensal enterobacteria from 310 healthy children living in Peru and Bolivia, using a metagenomic approach. Analysis of randomly selected enterobacterial pools revealed that qnrB was mainly carried by Escherichia coli and qnrS by Klebsiella pneumoniae . Investigation of 11 qnrB -positive isolates and 9 qnrS -positive isolates revealed the presence of plasmid-borne qnrB19 ( n = 8), qnrB2 ( n = 2), qnrB10 ( n = 1), and qnrS1 ( n = 9) genes.