Isolation and characterisation of multi-drug resistant pseudomonas aeruginosa from clinical, environmental and poultry litter sources in Ashanti Region of Ghana.
Loading...
Date
OCTOBER, 2016
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is now a major global health challenge. The increase and
indiscriminate use of antibiotics is pivotal in the selection of resistant bacteria strains and
the spread of resistance genes and resistance determining factors. The occurrence of
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a commonly implicated organism in nosocomial infections as
well as poultry diseases has been found to be on the increase in samples in Ghana. This
study therefore sought to determine the prevalence, susceptibility pattern, resistance
mechanisms, resistance determining factors and the clonal relatedness of P. aeruginosa
isolates obtained from stool, urine, blood, poultry litter and the environment in the Ashanti
Region of Ghana. The P. aeruginosa isolates were identified using their biochemical
characteristics and genotypically confirmed through PCR amplification of specific outer
membrane lipoprotein (oprL) genes. Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method was used to
determine the susceptibility of the isolates to commonly used antipseudomonal agents.
Plasmid sizes and resistance determining factors present in the isolates were detected
using alkaline lysis method and PCR, respectively. Out of 900 samples screened,
87(9.7%) P. aeruginosa isolates were obtained. 75% of the P. aeruginosa isolates from
the various sources were identified to be resistant to more than a single antipseudomonal
agent and 38(43.6%) of the isolates were multidrug resistant (resistant to antibiotics from
three or more antipseudomonal classes). The most common resistance pattern was
observed with ciprofloxacin (62%), gentamicin (69%) and ticarcillin (56%).
High prevalence of extended spectrum β-lactamases (84.2%), metallo- β-lactamases
(34.1%) and AmpC inducible cephalosporinases (50%) were observed in the MDR
xiv
isolates. However, no strain produced KPC type carbapenemase. Among the MDR strains,
57.8% displayed moderate to very high efflux capacity and 65.7% of the MDR isolates
haboured one to five plasmids with sizes ranging from 2.0kb to 116.8kb. While common
β- lactamase encoding genes (blaSHV, blaTEM, blaCTX-M, blaVIM and blaIMP) were not
detected in any MDR isolates, class 1 integrons were detected in 89.4% of the MDR
isolates with 15.7% and 13.1% respectively carrying quinolone resistance gene mutations
in gyrA and parC subunits of DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV. Antibiogram typing was
found to be discriminatory (D=0.9502), differentiating the MDR isolates into 24
antibiogram types with 19 distinct susceptibility patterns and 5 antibiogroups. Genotypic
relatedness of the strains from the various sources generated through ERIC-PCR
identified all the P. aeruginosa isolates to belong to two groups at a similarity of 62%.
Dendrogram generated using Pearson coefficient as a similarity index and UPGMA as a
distance measure revealed 27 P. aeruginosa genotypes. All the clinical strains of P.
aeruginosa were closely related. From this study, there is the possibility of MDR P.
aeruginosa transfer from the environment to patients as well as among patients in the
same hospital. P. aeruginosa strains in humans and poultry may develop extensive
antipseudomonal resistance which could be disseminated between patients and the
environment.
Description
Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
of Master of Philosophy
at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi- Ghana,