Molecular Detection of Class 1 Integron Gene and Antibiotics Susceptibility Patterns of Pseudomonas Species Isolated from Clinical Specimens

Abstract

Pseudomonas species is a common cause of health care acquired infection and also stand in second place in WHO critical list for antimicrobial resistance. Acquisition of antibiotic resistance gene in pathogenic bacteria has been a growing problem worldwide. The presence of resistance gene in class 1 integrons is associated with multi- drug resistance among Pseudomonas species. This study aimed to detect the class 1 integron and antibiotic susceptibility patterns of Pseudomonas species isolated from clinical specimens at No. (1) Defence Services General Hospital (1000-bedded) during the period of January to September 2020. The hospital and laboratory based descriptive study was conducted among the clinical samples received at Microbiology laboratory. Isolation, identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing were performed by Vitek 2 automated systems. All Pseudomonas species were tested for the presence of class 1 integron by PCR. In this study, 77 Pseudomonas species isolated from various clinical specimens. According to the finding, the most common resistance was observed towards cefotaxime (97.4%), while resistance to amikacin was less observed among isolates (22%). Out of 77 Pseudomonas species isolates, 54 (70%) were multidrug resistant (MDR) according to CLSI 2020 guidelines. Among the multidrug resistance, 38 (95%) isolates were class 1 integron positive (p<0.001) and 16 (43.24%) were class 1 integron negative (p<0.001). Therefore, this finding indicates the strong association between the presence of class 1 integron and multidrug resistance. Therefore, integrons play an important role in acquisition and dissemination of antibiotics resistance genes among Pseudomonas species.