摘要：The increase in isolates of the emerging, hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae variant (Kphv), has made it a bacterial species of great clinical-epidemiological interest due to its ability to cause severe and life-threatening infections in healthy and immunocompetent patients. It is associated with pneumonia, urinary tract infections, bacteremia, liver abscesses and endophthalmitis, among other infections. The pathogenic success of Kphv is due to the presence of virulence factors such as iron uptake systems, allantoin metabolism pathways, porins, expulsion systems, kpc fimbriae, production of capsular polysaccharide and lipopolysaccharide, in addition to the acquisition of genes that mediate antimicrobial resistance. The hypermucoviscous Kphv phenotype is characterized by the presence of capsule and lipopolysaccharide as virulence elements of great importance, which favor the increase of capsular material and the production of biofilm, allowing the microorganism to effectively evade the immune system of the susceptible host. The correlation of the capsular polysaccharide with the lipopolysaccharide plays a fundamental role in the virulence and pathogenicity of Kphv. Also, the convergence of genes that mediate antimicrobial resistance makes monitoring, analysis and development of therapeutic targets imperatively necessary to avoid dispersion of hypervirulent and multiresistant clones associated with high morbidity and mortality rates.
