Abstract

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Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen with the ability to cause severe surgical wound infections and remains a problem. This microorganism commonly shows resistance to several antibiotics. Integron a mobile genetic elements are playing important functions in the wide spread of P. aeruginosa antibiotic resistance. This study is aimed at investigating the occurrence of class 1, 2 and 3 integron genes (int1, int2, int3) among P. aeruginosa strains. For this purpose, a total of 284 wound swabs were collected using sterile swab sticks. Isolated P. aeruginosa were screened with 8 routinely used antibiotics by means of disk diffusion method. Polymerase chain reaction amplification was carried out on extracted DNAs from P. aeruginosa for the detection of integron and subsequent classification into int1, int2 and int3 genes using different set of specific primers. Out of the 99 isolates seen, 62 (66.7%) were P. aeruginosa. Most isolates that harbors integron genes showed notable resistance to antibiotics with highest resistance against Ceftazidime, Augmentin, Cefixime and Gentamicin (54.8%). PCR amplification showed that 16 (47.1%) P. aeruginosa strains harbors integron genes of which 13 (81.3%) isolates carried int1gene, 8 (50.0%) and 6 (37.5%) harbored int2 and int3 genes respectively. High antibiotic resistance amongst P. aeruginosa isolates were demonstrated in our study, int1 gene was prevalent followed by int2 then int3 and integrons has been reported to play an important role in multiple drug resistance among bacteria isolates.

Keywords: Antimicrobial, wound swabs, infections, post operative, polymerase chain reaction.