Prevalence of hypervirulent and carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae under divergent evolutionary patterns

K1/K2 hvKP strains acquire carbapenem-resistance plasmids, known as CR-hvKp, and carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) strains obtain virulence plasmids, recognized as hv-CRKP. The two different evolution patterns of hypervirulent combined carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae may lead to their different prevalence in hospitals. Our study aimed to investigate the prevalence of hv-CRKP and CR-hvKp strains and to analyze factors influencing their evolution and prevalence. We collected 890 K. pneumoniae genomes from GenBank and 530 clinical K. pneumoniae isolates from nine hospitals. Our study found that hv-CRKP strains were more prevalent than CR-hvKp strains and both were dominated by bla (KPC-2) gene. The bla (KPC-2)-carrying plasmids could mobilize non-conjugative virulence plasmids from hvKp strains to CRKP strains. The conserved oriT of virulence plasmids and the widespread of conjugative helper plasmids were potential factors for the mobilization of non-conjugative virulence plasmids. HvKp strains with KPC plasmid could hardly simultaneously exhibit hypervirulence and carbapenem resistance as CRKP strains with virulence plasmid, and we found that rfaH mutation reduced capsular synthesis and increased carbapenem resistance of the CR-hvKp strain. In summary, this study revealed that hv-CRKP strains were more suitable for survival in hospital settings than CR-hvKp strains and the widespread conjugative KPC-producing plasmids contributed to the emergence and prevalence of hv-CRKP strains.