Escherichia Coli: Characteristics of Carbapenem Resistance and Virulence Factors

In this study, fifty Escherichia coli strains were analyzed by multiplex polymerase chain reaction for the genes expressed carbapenemase and virulence factors in order to determine the presence of carbapenemase and nine virulence factors and investigate the association between these two characteristics. When carbapenemase susceptibility was taken into consideration, OXA-48 type carbapenemase was determined for 22% of the total strains. Also, the frequency of virulence gene regions in E. coli infections and virulence gene profiles of these isolates were examined and the frequency of pap, afa, sfa, fimA, iroN, aer, iutA, hly and cnf-1 genes were 24, 38, 20, 84, 28, 90, 92, 10 and 34% respectively. A significant correlation was found between the presence of fimA and afa gene regions and carbapenem susceptibility (P< 0.05). Based on the combination of carbapenemase and virulence factor genes, 24 different gene profiles were determined for all strains. The results of the study appear to indicate that fimA and afa genes correlate with carbapenem susceptibility, the relations of fimA with urinary tract infections and pap with complicated urinary tract infections. It also indicates that sfa and afa genes correlate with other infections except urinary tract infections.