Current Microbiology, Vol.77, No.12, 3897-3902, 2020
Multidrug Resistance in Integron BearingKlebsiella pneumoniaeisolated from Alexandria University Hospitals, Egypt
Klebsiella pneumoniaeis by far one of the most common Enterobacteriaceae associated with hospital-acquired infections. The dissemination of multi drug resistantKlebsiella pneumoniaeis causing difficulty to treat infections worldwide. Of additional concern, multi drug resistantKlebsiella pneumoniaeacquires and transfers antibiotic resistance genes among other bacterial isolates.Integrons have the main role in the acquisition as well as dissemination of resistance genes. Accordingly we aimed to investigate the frequency of resistance genessul1, sul2, tetA, tetBandaac (3) IIa,class one (int1gene) and class two integrons(int2gene) inKlebsiella pneumoniaeclinical isolates from four major hospitals in Alexandria, Egypt using Polymerase Chain Reaction. In addition we aimed to evaluate the association between multidrug resistance and presence of integrons in hospital-acquiredKlebsiella pneumoniaein our hospitals.To the best of our knowledge, there is little information about integrons and acquisition of multiple antibiotic resistance inKlebsiella pneumoniaein hospitals in Alexandria, Egypt. In this study 76 isolates were resistant to sulphamethoxazole /trimethoprim. Of these 38 isolates (50%) harbored both genessul1andsul2genes. 42 isolates out of the 60 (70%) isolates that showed resistance to tetracycline weretetAortetBpositive. The prevalence ofint1gene among all isolates tested was 90%, while only one isolate harbored theint2gene (1%). Our results were indicative of the high prevalence of multidrug resistantKlebsiella pneumoniaeas well as integrons that were found to play an essential role in the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes in our hospitals.