Virulence genes and antibiotic resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from patients in the Northwestern of Morocco

• DOI: 10.3855/jidc.10675
• Publication Date: 2019-10-30T16:59:49Z
• Authors: Chaimae Elmouaden; Amin Laglaoui; Latifa Ennanei; Mohammed Bakkali; Mohammed Abid
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; Virulence Factors; Antibiotic resistance; FOS: Basic medicine; Microbial Sensitivity Tests; Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology; Microbiology; Gene; Global Challenge of Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria; Global Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance; 03 medical and health sciences; Bacterial Biofilms and Quorum Sensing Mechanisms; Antibiotics; Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology; Pseudomonas; Genetics; Humans; Pseudomonas Infections; Molecular Biology; Biology; Immunology and Microbiology; Virulence; Bacteria; Life Sciences; Anti-Bacterial Agents; 3. Good health; Morocco; Genes, Bacterial; FOS: Biological sciences; Pseudomonas aeruginosa; Molecular Medicine

Introduction: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an ubiquitous bacterium causes various community-acquired and nosocomial infections. In this investigation, we aimed to screen the antibiotic susceptibility patterns and the prevalence of virulence factor genes in a set of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from nosocomial and community-acquired infections in the Northwestern of Morocco. Methodology: A total of 155 of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains were collected (January 2015 - December 2016) from nosocomial and community-acquired infections at hospital centers and clinical laboratories in the Northwestern of Morocco. Antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed by the standard disk diffusion method. In addition, PCR assays were used for screening five virulence encoding genes (lasB, algD, plcH, exoA, and exoS). Results: Our results revealed that high level of antimicrobial resistance was detected towards aztreonam (27.1%) followed by meropenem (14.2%). The resistance to imipenem was significantly higher in strains isolated from nosocomial infections (12.7%) than strains isolated from community-acquired infections (1.5%). The results highlighted that lasB (98.7%) and exoS (98.7%) were the most frequent virulence genes. Conclusions: This survey provides data about phenotypic and genotypic properties of Pseudomonas aeruginosa emerged in the Northwestern of Morocco. It could be helpful for the health workers to improve infection control measures and to establish a surveillance system.