Detection of major facilitator superfamily (MFS) transporter in Enterobacteriaceae isolated from chicken

Abstract

A major facilitator superfamily (MFS) transporter is an active secondary transport system that uses a chemiosmotic ion gradient to transport small molecules. MFS is part of the efflux pump group of proteins and is responsible for releasing toxic compounds and contributing to the antimicrobial resistance mechanisms. In this study, we aimed to detect MFS genes from a collection of Enterobacteriaceae (n=60) isolated from cloacal swabs of chickens. After DNA extraction and amplification, only four isolates (6.7%) were regarded positive for MFS genes and subjected to Sanger dideoxy sequencing. A BlastX search in GenBank® showed that four positive samples with approximate length 300 bp were identified as MSF transporter from Klebsiella pneumoniae with a similarity of 97-98%. This finding warrants further study to confirm both phenotypic and genotypic resistance profiles that correlate with bacterial multidrug efflux pump mechanism.