Molecular Phylogenetic Study on <i>Pseudomonas stutzeri</i> Isolated from Currency Notes in Khartoum State, Sudan and Identified Via16s rRNA Gene Sequence Analysis

Abstract

Pseudomonas stutzeri is a valuable bacteria for understanding of the taxonomical and the phylogenetic relationships. The study of genetic relationships between organisms or genes is carried out by molecular phylogeny. We aim to study the relationships according to16S rRNA gene sequences between our samples and the closest strains from other countries over the world. To our knowledge, the phylogenetic studies between strains from Sudan with strains from other countries were not done before. A total of 140 currency notes in different denominations were collected randomly from several locations including hospitals, food sellers and transporters. From the collected notes, a total of 135 bacterial colonies were isolated and from them 14 isolates were identified as a pseudomonas stutzeri. In the study, streaking plate method was used for the isolation of pure bacterial culture, Chelex 100 method was used for DNA extraction, conventional PCR was used for amplification of the targeted gene, agarose gel electrophoresis and various bioinformatics tools were used for nucleotide sequence analysis. The PCR products were sent for Macrogen Company-Netherlands for purification and nucleotide sequencing. After sequencing 3 samples were noisy, hence they were excluded. According to phylogenetic analysis, we found that the samples were closely related to strains from southeast Asia (Indonesia), east Asia (China), south-central Asia (Bangladesh), south Asia (India), north Africa (Tunisia) and south Europe (Italy and Greece). Despite the samples were from the same source (currency notes), we found that there is broad sequence variation between them.

First detection of an OXA-48-producing Enterobacter cloacae isolate from currency coins in Algeria

“…Most of the bacterial species identified here have been implicated in many life threatening infections, which could pose a health risk particularly to immune compromised individuals in the community. In addition, to P. libanensis detected here for the first time from currency, the other GNB species have been already described with different levels of antibiotic resistance [3] , [8] , [9] , [13] , [14] . The obtained isolates could be from several sources depending on environmental conditions, age of money, handling or the poor sanitary condition and hygienic practices exercised by those manipulating currencies [2] , [3] .…”

“…However, after the outbreaks of some transmissible diseases, these reports have gained some serious consideration [11] , [12] and revealed that coins and paper currencies can serve as an ideal breeding for the multiplication of microorganisms [1] . In this study, we isolated different Gram negative bacteria species in agreement with several studies carried out on coin and paper currency collected from different sites including hospitals, public transport conductors and food vendors among different countries [1] , [2] , [3] , [9] , [13] . Most of the bacterial species identified here have been implicated in many life threatening infections, which could pose a health risk particularly to immune compromised individuals in the community.…”