Plasmid proving antibiotic resistance in Al-Kharj Province

Abstract

M.M Mohamadein

The current work aims at screening pathogenic bacteria resistant to different antibiotics, clarifying the existence of resistivity due to free plasmids or plasmids integrated to chromosomes, and then isolating the plasmid involved in such resistivity and determining the precise antibiotic to which the plasmid is resistant. E. coli (8 isolates), Salmonella enteritidis (4 isolates), Proteus mirabilis (2 isolates), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (1 isolate), klebsiella pneumonia (1 isolate) were isolated from patients suffering diarrhea, fever, abdominal pain, and headache at King Khaled Hospital in Al-Kharj province. Thirteen antibiotics were investigated against the sixteen pathogenic bacterial isolates revealing the presence of resistant and sensitive isolates, subsequently plasmid isolation was performed on the unique nine selected isolates and the detected plasmids in five of the nine investigated bacterial pathogens were purified and transformed into the XL-blue 1 competent cells. The sensitivity assay results reveal the resistance of all of the investigated isolates to each of the antibiotics, mupirocin and cloxacillin. However, gentamycin, aztreonum, amikacin and meropenem were effective against all the investigated bacteria. While, the plasmid profile showed the presence of high molecular weight plasmids in five of the nine investigated bacterial pathogens, namely: Salmonella enteritidis (1);Pseudomonas aeruginosa (2) and Proteus marbilis (2).The transformed plasmid possesses resistivity genes for penicillin and cephalosporin groups only. On the other hand, the resistivity for all the rest of the investigated antibiotics might be integrated on the chromosome. So, the misuse of antibiotics facilitates the possession of pathogen’s multidrug resistance through R- factor (plasmid) production. This resistance could then be permanent through the integration of the plasmid to the bacterial chromosome preventing the possibility of the future use of such antibiotic