Significant association between genes encoding virulence factors with antibiotic resistance and phylogenetic groups in community acquired uropathogenic Escherichia coli isolates

Abstract

Background: Antibiotic resistance is an increasing phenomenon in many bacterial pathogens including uropathogenic Escherichia coli. Hypothetical anti-virulent agents could be a solution, but first clear virulence associated gene-pool of antibiotic resistant isolates have to be determined. The aim of this study is to investigate the significant associations between genes encoding VFs with antibiotic resistance and phylogenetic groups in UPEC isolates. Results: The majority of 248 UPEC isolates belonged to phylogenetic group B2 (67.3%). The maximum and minimum resistance was attributed to amoxicillin (90.3%) and both fosfomycin and imipenem (1.6%) respectively. 11.3% of isolates were resistant to all antibiotic agents except that of imipenem, nitrofurantoin and fosfomycin. These highly resistant isolates were placed only in group B2 and D. The most prevalent virulence gene was ompA (93.5%). The hlyA was the only virulence gene that was significantly more prevalent in the highly resistant isolates. The ompA, malX and hlyA genes were obviously more abundant in the antibiotic resistant isolates in comparison to susceptible isolates. The papC gene was associated with amoxicillin resistance (p-value = 0.006, odds ratio: 26.00). Conclusions: Increased resistance to first line drugs prescribed for UTIs were detected in CA-UPEC isolates in our study.. Minimal resistance was observed against nitrofurantoin, fosfomycin and imipenem. Therefore, they are introduced for application in empirical therapy of UTIs. Fosfomycin may be the most effective antibiotic agent against highly resistant UPEC isolates. The presence of the ompA, malX and hlyA genes were significantly associated with resistance to different antibiotic agents. We assume that the ability of UPEC isolates to upgrade their antibiotic resistance capacity may occurs in compliance with the preliminary existence of specific virulence associated genes. But, more investigation with higher number of bacterial isolates, further virulence associated genes and comparison of gene pools from CA-UPEC isolates with HA-UPEC are proposed to confirm these finding and discovering new aspects of this association.

Detection of Phylogenetic Groups and Drug Resistance Genes of Escherichia coli Causing Urinary Tract Infection in Southwest Iran

“…Therefore, in this study, we tried to investigate the prevalence of phylogenetic groups, antibiotic resistance genes, and the distribution of these resistance genes and antibiotic resistance patterns in uropathogenic E. coli phylogenetic groups based on the new method of Clermont et al for the first time in Yasuj (Southwest Iran). The results of several studies indicate that extraintestinal pathogenic strains mainly belong to groups B2 and D (to a lesser extent) and, also, the commensal isolates of E. coli belong to groups A and B1 (2,10,22). In the present study, the most common phylogenetic groups belonged to group B2 with a prevalence of 36.4%.…”

“…Among them, Escherichia coli is the most common agent that can cause infections at different ages. Studies in different communities have shown that Gram-negative bacilli, especially E. coli, cause more than 80 -90% of infections (1,2). A group of researchers has emphasized that the type of E. coli phylogenetic group plays an important role in their pathogenicity (3)(4)(5).…”

Virulence genes and phylogenetic groups of uropathogenic Escherichia coli isolates from patients with urinary tract infection and uninfected control subjects: a case-control study

“…Although some studies have found the positive association between virulence traits including iron scavenger receptors with antibiotic resistance [ 39 , 40 ], there are many contradictions in this regard. For example, in some studies the presence of hly gene was associated with sensitivity to fluoroquinolones [ 41 – 43 ] and in other study resistance to fluoroquinolones [ 8 ]. Thus, future comprehensive studies are necessary to elucidate the relationship between VFs and antibiotic resistance and the evolutionary direction of bacteria.…”

“…Among variety of VFs, some are generally accepted to be more associated with UPEC [ 7 ]. fim operon, pap operon, and sfa genes encode type I fimbriae, P fimbriae and S fimbriae respectively [ 8 , 9 ]. These structural VFs are the main attachment factors associated with colonization of organism to host cells [ 7 ].…”

Plasmid-Borne and Chromosomal ESBL/AmpC Genes in Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae in Global Food Products

“…Our analysis comparing plasmids carrying bla genes in this study with plasmid sequences deposited in open databases showed the plasmids in our study were similar with mostly livestock-derived plasmids obtained previously from various countries, but also with human clinical samples, especially from urinary tract infections. pZPK-A41.2-1 carried the P fimbriae encoding virulence gene papC which has been associated with uropathogenic E. coli infections ( Yazdanpour et al, 2020 ). pZPK-A40.2-1 was also similar to a mcr-1 -carrying plasmid isolated from a human urine sample from the United States (GenBank accession: KX276657.1 ), indicating a potential for IncF type plasmids being able to obtain new resistance genes.…”