Detection of Virulence Factors and Antibiotic Resistance Pattern of Clinical and Intensive Care Unit Environmental Isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

BACKGROUND: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a gram-negative non-glucose fermenting aerobic bacteria and an opportunistic pathogen in humans and animals. The present study was carried out to investigate the distribution of virulence factors and antibiotic resistance properties of P. aeruginosa isolated from patients and intensive care unit (ICU) environment. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A total of 116 P. aeruginosa isolated from patients and ICU environment were collected from Besat hospital in Hamadan, the West of Iran. P. aeruginosa isolates were analyzed based on the presence of the virulence factors encoding genes included exoA, exoS, exoU, and algD using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed using a disk diffusion method. RESULTS: The results showed the prevalence of exoA 33 (56.9%), exoS 21 (36.20%), exoU 37 (63.8%), and algD 35 (60.34%) genes in ICU environment P. aeruginosa strains and exo A 23 (39.25%), exoS 25 (43.1%), exoU 40(68.98%), and algD 25 (43.1%) genes in clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa. High resistance levels of the clinical and ICU environment isolate to ampicillinsulbactam (100%), were also observed. CONCLUSION: Our findings should raise awareness about antibiotic resistance in hospitalized patients in Iran. Clinicians should exercise caution in prescribing antibiotics, especially in cases of human infections.

Highly synergistic activity of melittin with imipenem and colistin in biofilm inhibition against multidrug-resistant strong biofilm producer strains of Acinetobacter baumannii.

The rapid increase of drug resistance and failure of available antibiotics to treat biofilm-associated infections is of great health concern. Accordingly, our study aimed to evaluate the synergistic antibacterial, biofilm inhibitory, and biofilm removal activities of melittin in combination with colistin, imipenem, and ciprofloxacin against multidrug-resistant (MDR) strong biofilm producer Acinetobacter baumannii isolates. The kinetics of biofilm formation were evaluated for the isolates for 144 h. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs), minimum bactericidal concentrations (MBCs), minimum biofilm inhibitory concentrations (MBICs), and biofilm removal activities for melittin and combinations with antibiotics were determined. Inhibition of biofilm-associated protein (bap) expression by melittin was evaluated with real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) was used to visualize the effect of synergism on the inhibition of biofilm production. The geometric means of the fractional inhibitory concentration index (FICi) for melittin-colistin, melittin-imipenem, and melittin-ciprofloxacin combinations were calculated as 0.31, 0.24, and 0.94, respectively. Comparing the geometric means of the removal activity for melittin, colistin, imipenem, and combinations of them in both 6 and 24 h showed a significant difference between the groups (p-value < 0.05). Exposure to melittin induced a statistically significant downregulation of bap mRNA levels in all isolates at sub-MIC doses. Analysis of the FE-SEM results demonstrated that the synergism of melittin-colistin at 0.125-0.25 µg inhibited biofilm formation completely. In conclusion, our findings indicate that melittin possesses considerable potential for use in combination with colistin and imipenem to treat infections caused by MDR strong biofilm producer A. baumannii isolates.

Correlation between ability of biofilm formation with their responsible genes and MDR patterns in clinical and environmental Acinetobacter baumannii isolates.

Acinetobacter baumannii potential to form biofilm and exhibit multiple antibiotic resistances may be responsible in its survival in hospital environment. Accordingly, our study was aimed to determine the correlation between ability of biofilm formation and the frequency of biofilm related genes with antibiotic resistance phenotypes, and also the categorization of their patterns in clinical and environmental isolates. A total of 75 clinical and 32 environmental strains of the A. baumannii were collected and identified via API 20NE. Antibiotic susceptibility was evaluated by disk diffusion and microdilution broth methods. Biofilm formation assay was performed by microtiter plate method. OXA types and biofilm related genes including BlaOXA-51, BlaOXA-23, BlaOXA-24, BlaOXA-58, bap, blaPER-1, and ompA were amplified by PCR. The rate of MDR A. baumannii in clinical isolates (100%) was higher than environmental (81.2%) isolates (p < 0.05). Among 10 antibiotypes, the predominant resistance pattern in clinical and environmental isolates was antibiotypes I (85.3 and 78.1%, respectively). Analysis of the frequency of blaOXA-23 gene revealed a statistically significant difference between clinical (85.3%) and environmental (68.7%) isolates (p < 0.05). The prevalence of strong biofilm producers in clinical and environmental isolates were 31.2%-58.7%, respectively. In the clinical and environmental isolates, the frequencies of ompA, blaRER-1 and bap genes were 100%, 53.3%, 82.7% and 100%, 37.5%, 84.4% respectively. Statistical analysis revealed a significant correlation between the frequency of MDR isolates and biofilm formation ability (p = 0.008). The high frequency of antibiotype I would be indicated that an outbreak has been happened earlier and an endemic strain is currently being settled in the hospital environment. It would be suggested that if there was no difference in the frequency of pattern I and biofilm formation ability between clinical and environmental isolates, it is a critical point representing the higher risk of bacterial transmission from environment to the patients. The resulting data would be assisted in the improvement of disinfection strategies to better control of nosocomial infections. One dominant resistance pattern has shown among clinical and environmental isolates. The frequency of blaOXA-23 had significant difference between clinical and environmental isolates. The presence of bap gene in the A. baumannii isolates was associated with biofilm formation. There was a significant correlation between multiple drug resistance and biofilm formation. The clinical isolates had a higher ability to form strong biofilms compared to the environmental samples.