Occurrence of potential virulence factors and antimicrobial resistance markers in fecal E.coli isolates from infants

Abstract

Objectives: E. coli is one of the first gram-negative organism colonizing the intestine of infants, and it’s commonly causes various communityacquired and nosocomial bacterial infection in infants. This study explores the relationship between the incidence of antimicrobial resistance profile and virulence factors genes of E. coli colonizing the intestine of infants.Methods: A total of 150 fecal E. coli isolates from infants aged less than one year, who were admitted to Pediatric Clinics at The Jordan University Hospital, Amman, Jordan, were investigated for their antimicrobial resistance profile and 11 common virulence factors using PCR. Results: A total of 134/150 (89.3%) were multidrug resistant (MDR) to at least 3 antibiotic classes. Hospitalized infants carried significantly more MDR E. coli than non-hospitalized. The majority of E. coli isolates carried the virulence factors; aerobactin (33.3%), type1 fimbriae (27.3%), S.fimbriae (20%), followed by P.fimbriae (18%), haemolysin (14.7%), papG class II (12.0%), and papG class III (7.3%), whereas all isolates were negative for capsular antigens K1 and K5 genes, papG adhesion `Class I and Dr haemagglutinin. Hospitalized infants carried significantly more MDR isolates than nonhospitalized infants, and the type of milk feeding was not significantly associated with MDR isolates in both groups. Conclusion: This study showed that increased presence of antimicrobial resistance markers (≥ 6) in E. coli isolates were significantly (P= 0.001) associated with less presence of potential virulence genes.