UKHSA-PACE AMR panels: Contemporary Gram-negative AMR strains now available from NCTC
The rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) continues to threaten the effective treatment of bacterial infections worldwide, creating an urgent need for new diagnostics and therapeutics. To support innovation in this field, the UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infections Reference Unit (AMRHAI) in partnership with Pathways to Antimicrobial Clinical Efficacy (PACE), has developed five contemporary Gram-negative AMR strain panels.
Together, these panels comprise 145 clinically relevant bacterial isolates, representing major pathogens associated with urinary tract infections, respiratory tract infections, bloodstream infections and sepsis. Each isolate has been extensively characterised using both antimicrobial susceptibility testing and whole-genome sequencing, with accompanying phenotypic and genomic data publicly available. The panels were selected to capture globally circulating lineages, high-risk clones and priority resistance mechanisms identified by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Five curated panels
The collection includes:
30 Escherichia coli isolates representing 14 sequence types, including globally disseminated high-risk clones such as ST131, ST38 and ST167. The panel encompasses both carbapenem-resistant and third-generation cephalosporin-resistant strains, including isolates carrying NDM, OXA-48-like, KPC, IMP and VIM carbapenemases.
30 Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates representing 15 sequence types, including internationally recognised multidrug-resistant clones ST147, ST11, ST307 and ST101. The panel includes carbapenem-resistant and third-generation cephalosporin-resistant strains, as well as hypervirulent lineages associated with carbapenemase production.
30 Acinetobacter baumannii isolates, all carbapenem resistant, encompassing a diverse range of resistance mechanisms across multiple carbapenemase families. The
panel includes isolates with varying susceptibility to colistin, an important last-resort antimicrobial.
30 Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates, all carbapenem resistant, representing 23 sequence types including the globally disseminated ST235 lineage. The panel includes isolates carrying metallo-β-lactamases as well as strains exhibiting resistance through alternative mechanisms such as efflux pump overexpression and porin loss.
25 mixed Enterobacterales isolates, comprising Proteus, Morganella, Serratia, Citrobacter and Enterobacter species. These strains represent clinically important resistance profiles including carbapenemase production and extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) activity.
Supporting AMR research and development
Access to well-characterised, standardised reference strains is essential for the development and evaluation of novel antimicrobial agents, susceptibility testing methods and diagnostic technologies. While other AMR-focused collections and strain panels exist, relatively few combine comprehensive phenotypic and genomic characterisation with a focus on contemporary, clinically important resistance mechanisms and globally relevant high-risk lineages.
These panels provide researchers, biotechnology companies, pharmaceutical developers and public health organisations with access to a consistent set of reference isolates that can be used throughout the product development pipeline, from early discovery through to validation and evaluation studies. Individual strains and complete panels are available for purchase, with associated metadata freely accessible through the EMBL-EBI BioSamples and European Nucleotide Archive databases.
Applications
These strain panels are suitable for:
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Antimicrobial drug discovery and development
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Diagnostic assay development and validation
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Antimicrobial susceptibility testing research
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AMR surveillance and epidemiological studies
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Public health and academic research programmes
Access the strains
All strains are now available via the NCTC catalogue, browse our collection
