Estimation of β-Lactamase Phenotypically and Genotypically in ESKAPE Group Isolates from Ulcers Infection in Al-Najaf-Iraq

Jawad HA, Motaweq ZY, Ibrahim SH. 2022. Estimation of β- lactamase phenotypically and genotypically in ESKAPE group isolates from ulcers infections in Al-Najaf-Iraq. Colonizing the ulcers by potentially ESKAPE group bacteria constitutes the threat of their transmission to various human tissues and organs. Thus, there is an increased risk of developing general infections, which would be particularly serious for persons with impaired immunity; such a health risk should be considered. The bacteriological methods, including colonial morphology, Gram stain, and other biochemical tests, first made identification of bacterial isolates. Identification of all suspected bacterial isolates confirmed by the automated vitek-2 compact system using GP and GN-ID cards. The ESKAPE group test’s antimicrobial susceptibility results revealed that Enterobacter cloacae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa have great resistance to the most common antibiotics used in hospitals. All of the isolates, 14 K. pneumoniae and 12 E. cloacae (100%), were able to grow normally in the presence of ampicillin and amoxicillin and then considered as β-lactam resistant isolates. The result revealed that out of 14 β-lactam resistance K. pneumonia isolates only, 13 isolates (92.85%) gave positive results with the direct iodine method. In contrast, β-lactam resistance 5 E. cloacae, 1 Acinetobacter baumannii, 1 Enterococcus faecium, 8 Staphylococcus aureus gave 100% positive results. Using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique, the genotyping method was used to detect the β-lactamase enzyme (blaSHV, blaGES) using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique. Molecular amplification of blaSHV and blaGES genes by using a specific primer for ESKAPE group isolates revealed a positive result for revealed that out of 4 E. cloacae, 6 S. aureus isolates, 6 K. pneumoniae, 6 P. aeruginosa, E. faecium and 1 A. baumannii in this study were given 4(100%), 0 (0%), 3(50%), 5(83.33%), 0(0%), 0(0%) for the blaSHV gene. In contrast, all 100% of ESKAPE group isolates gave negative results for the blaGES gene.