The prevalence of antimicrobial resistant bacterial pathogens has become a major public health concern. Extended-Spectrum ß Lactamase (ESBL) production in the members of the family Enterobacteriaceae can confer resistance to extended spectrum cephalosporins as well as azetronam and penicillins. Integrons are genetic structures capable of capturing and excising gene cassettes, which usually encode antimicrobial drug resistance determinants. Although integrons are not self mobilizable, they are usually found in association with transposons and are often located on plasmids, facilitating their mobility. This study aimed to know whether integron genes are implicated in this multi-drug resistance, especially with ESBL producing strains and the usefulness of integron detection as an indicator of the potential dissemination of multidrug resistant Enterobacteriaceae in hospital environment. This study was conducted in Benha University Hospital. It included collection of 100 clinical samples from different clinical departments in order to isolate nosocomial Enterobacteriaceae and detect the integrons by Polymerase Chain Reaction Sequence Specific Primer (PCR-SSP). Integrons were found only in ESBL group. Incidence of class 1 integron was high in our Enterobacteriaceae isolates especially Klebsiellae and E. Coli which were the most frequent organisms in the study. There was an association between integrons and multidrug resistance especially to aminoglycosides and tetracyclins. |
