Romanian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences

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BACTERIOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR DETECTION OF FLUOROQUINOLONE RESISTANCE IN ESCHERICHIA COLI ISOLATED FROM WOMEN PATIENTS WITH URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS

BASMA M. AL-SARRAJ 1, EHAB D. SALMAN 1, DUNYA MUAYED AHMED 1, MUHANNAD I. MASSADEH 2, BATOL I. DHEEB 3*

1 Department of Biotechnology, College of Science, University of Baghdad, Iraq
2 Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Science. The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan
3 Department of pathological analysis, College of Applied science, Samarra University, Salah Aldeen, Iraq

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Fluoroquinolone (FQ)-resistant strains are the main reason for outbreaks of urinary tract and hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). FQ-resistant Escherichia coli is becoming frequent in patients with urinary tract infections (UTIs), and UTI patients' widespread abuse of antibiotics has led to an increase in FQ resistance in E. coli. Mutations of gyrA gene, which encodes DNA gyrase, are the main cause of fluoroquinolone resistance in E. coli. In this study, 63 clinical isolates were recognised as E. coli, of which 33 showed resistance to all fluoroquinolones. Direct sequencing revealed 9 mutations in the gyrA gene at different locations which were distributed into 2 silent mutations, 2 deletion mutations, 4 missenses, and 1 non–sense mutation. The findings obtained in the current study indicate that the high prevalence of mutations in resistance gyrAgene is responsible for the resistance to fluoroquinolones group in local isolates of E. coli resistance towards five types of antibiotics that are related to fluoroquinolones group.