{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,25]],"date-time":"2026-08-25T18:28:30Z","timestamp":1787682510837,"version":"build-2784847793"},"reference-count":21,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,30]],"date-time":"2025-07-30T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1753833600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title><jats:p><jats:italic>Acinetobacter baumannii<\/jats:italic> poses a profound global health threat because of multidrug resistance and its association with nosocomial infections. However, standard clinical diagnostics often report it together with other <jats:italic>Acinetobacter<\/jats:italic> species as <jats:italic>A. baumannii-calcoaceticus<\/jats:italic> complex (ABC), which unavoidably conceals the attribution of non-<jats:italic>A. baumannii<\/jats:italic> species. This study reported orthopedic infection cases associated with different <jats:italic>Acinetobacter<\/jats:italic> species and characterized the genomes of the culture isolates to evaluate their potential impact on the clinical treatment.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>Nine in-patients with <jats:italic>A. baumannii-calcoaceticus<\/jats:italic> complex identified by culture during hospitalization were enrolled by the Orthopedics Department from a local hospital in Qingdao, China. Their clinical data were reviewed. One ABC isolate from each patient was tested for drug susceptibility and subjected for whole-genome sequencing, followed by bioinformatic analyses.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>Through whole-genome analysis, nine ABC isolates were identified as six <jats:italic>A. baumannii<\/jats:italic>, two <jats:italic>A. pittii<\/jats:italic>, and one <jats:italic>A. soli<\/jats:italic> with distinct antibiotic resistance profiles and phylogenetic characteristics, indicating progressing pathogen transmission across broad geographic regions in One Health perspective. All <jats:italic>A. baumannii<\/jats:italic> and <jats:italic>A. pittii<\/jats:italic> strains carried multidrug resistance genes, while <jats:italic>A. soli<\/jats:italic> bore only <jats:italic>amvA<\/jats:italic> and <jats:italic>rsmA<\/jats:italic>. Phenotypically, eight isolates were susceptible to almost all the antibiotics tested, with only one <jats:italic>A. baumannii<\/jats:italic> being multidrug resistant. Despite this, eight patients received cephalosporins following positive reports of <jats:italic>A. baumannii-calcoaceticus<\/jats:italic> complex.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title><jats:p>Our study highlighted the limitation of current clinical diagnostic approaches for non-<jats:italic>A. baumannii<\/jats:italic> cases, which tended to be overtreated, and suggested that <jats:italic>Acinetobacter<\/jats:italic> etiology landscape should be explored further beyond <jats:italic>A. baumannii<\/jats:italic> to avoid antibiotic misuse.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fcimb.2025.1601779","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,30]],"date-time":"2025-07-30T05:28:14Z","timestamp":1753853294000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Orthopedic infections associated with distinct Acinetobacter strains in rural area of Qingdao, China"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Ying","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Dan","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yeshun","family":"Fan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yanxiang","family":"Cui","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yingdi","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiaoxuan","family":"Guan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Linhong","family":"Yu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shunqian","family":"Yuan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lan","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jianqiang","family":"Hu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yisong","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wenbo","family":"Xia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jie","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,30]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"349","DOI":"10.1128\/JCM.02625-14","article-title":"A taxonomically unique Acinetobacter strain with proteolytic and hemolytic activities recovered from a patient with a soft tissue injury","volume":"53","author":"Almuzara","year":"2015","journal-title":"J. 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