ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Research Article | Open Access
Mahmoud M. Tawfick1,2, Nagwan G. El Menofy3 , Maha E. Omran3, Omnia A. Alsharony4, Maha A. Abo-Shady3
1Microbiology and Immunology Department, Faculty of Pharmacy (Boys), Al-Azhar University, Cairo 11884, Egypt.
2Microbiology and Immunology Department, Faculty of Pharmacy, Heliopolis University, Cairo, Egypt.
3Microbiology and Immunology Department, Faculty of Pharmacy (Girls), Al-Azhar University, Cairo,11884, Egypt.
4Helwan General Hospital, Helwan, Cairo, Egypt.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2020;14(3):1649-1661 | Article Number: 6422
https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.14.3.03 | © The Author(s). 2020
Received: 21/05/2020 | Accepted: 17/09/2020 | Published: 28/09/2020
Abstract

Enterococcus spp. are remarkable multidrug resistant (MDR) bacteria that are causing serious healthcare-associated infections. The current study investigated the frequency of Enterococcus spp., antimicrobial susceptibility, biofilm formation and the presence of some plasmid-mediated virulence characters and antimicrobial resistance determinants in enterococcal isolates from Egyptian hospitals in Cairo. Enterococcus bacterial isolates were recovered from different clinical specimens and identified using biochemical testing and KB005A HiStrep™ identification kit. Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method and/or broth microdilution method were used to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility patterns. Phenotypic assays were performed to study biofilm formation and cytolysin and gelatinase production. PCR assays targeting the plasmid-carried genes aac(6’)-aph(2’), aph(3)-IIIa, vanA, agg and cylA were performed. In this study, 50 isolates of diverse Enterococcus spp. were identified with E. faecium was the most frequently isolated one. High resistance profiles were determined against tested antimicrobials and all isolates were MDR. Moderate biofilm formation was detected in 20% of isolates, 18% showed complete blood hemolysis and 12% produced gelatinase. All isolates carried the tested aminoglycosides resistance genes, while vanA was found only in 4 isolates (8%). The virulence genes agg and cylA were detected in 4% and 32% of isolates, respectively. In conclusion, E. faecium was the most prevalent species. The entire isolates set were MDR and the plasmid-carried aminoglycoside resistance genes were extensively disseminated among MDR isolates. Thus, regular surveillance studies, from the area of study or other geographical regions in Egypt, and strict infection control measures are required to monitor the emerging MDR enterococci.

Keywords

Enterococcus spp., aminoglycoside, vancomycin, biofilm, virulence

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© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.