Drug Resistance of Acinetobacter baumannii Isolated from Cardiology Patients

Abstract

Nosocomial infections caused by Acinetobacter baumannii are associated with high mortality, especially among critically ill patients. A. baumannii is highly resistant to long-term starvation, desiccation, disinfecting agents, and antibiotics, and its negative impact on the cardiology patients is particularly severe. Thus, the present study aimed at the detection of molecular markers of antibiotic resistance in A. baumannii infecting patients in a hospital cardiology unit. Drug susceptibility of 100 A. baumannii strains obtained from the patients of The Second People's Hospital of Futian District was determined, and the presence of genes coding for proteins implicated in antibiotic resistance was evaluated by conventional PCR and real-time PCR. Most of the strains found to be multi-drug resistant and strains not responding to meropenem exhibited a high degree of homology. The resistant strains expressed two genes coding for class D β-lactamases: OXA-51 and OXA-23. Moreover, the AdeB gene, coding for a component of the AdeABC active efflux pumps, was also harbored in a vast majority of meropenem-resistant A. baumannii strains. The obtained results indicate that the recognition of specific genes responsible for the resistance by molecular biology techniques provide a rapid method for identification of A. baumannii strains that do not respond to treatment with antibiotics, an issue of critical importance for cariology patients.