Rapid detection of New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase gene and variants coding for carbapenemases with different activities by use of a PCR-based in vitro protein expression method.

New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM)-producing bacteria are considered potential global health threats. It is necessary to monitor NDM-1 and its variants in clinical isolates in order to understand the NDM-1 epidemic and the impact of its variants on β-lactam resistance. To reduce the lengthy time needed for cloning and expression of NDM-1 variants, a novel PCR-based in vitro protein expression (PCR-P) method was used to detect blaNDM-1 and its variants coding for carbapenemases with different activities (functional variants). The PCR-P method combined a long-fragment real-time quantitative PCR (LF-qPCR) with in vitro cell-free expression to convert the blaNDM-1 amplicons into NDM for carbapenemase assay. The method could screen for blaNDM-1 within 3 h with a detection limit of 5 copies and identify functional variants within 1 day. Using the PCR-P to analyze 5 recent blaNDM-1 variants, 2 functional variants, blaNDM-4 and blaNDM-5, were revealed. In the initial testing of 23 clinical isolates, the PCR-P assay correctly found 8 isolates containing blaNDM-1. This novel method provides the first integrated approach for rapidly detecting the full-length blaNDM-1 and revealing its functional variants in clinical isolates.