Sahar A. Ali

By Hussein Al-Dahmoshi, Sahar A. Ali and Noor Al-Khafaji

Urinary tract infections (UTI) are the most common bacterial infections affecting humans. Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae were common enterobacteria engaged with community-acquired UTIs. Efflux pumps were vital resistance mechanisms for antibiotics, especially among enterobacteria. Overexpression of an efflux system, which results in a decrease in antibiotic accumulation, is an effective mechanism for drug resistance. The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters, small multidrug resistance (SMR), and multidrug and toxic compound extrusion (MATE) families, the major facilitator superfamily (MFS), and the resistance-nodulation- cell division (RND) family are the five superfamilies of efflux systems linked to drug resistance. This chapter highlights the results of studying the prevalence of efflux pump genes among local isolates of E. coli and K. pneumoniae in Hilla City, Iraq. class RND AcrAB-TolC, AcrAD-TolC, and AcrFE-TolC genes detected by conventional PCR of E. coli and K. pneumoniae respectively. The result revealed approximately all studied efflux transporter were found in both E. coli and K. pneumoniae in different percentages. Biofilm formation were observed in 50(100%) of K. pneumoniae and 49(98%) of E. coli isolates were biofilm former and follow: 30(60%), 20(40%) were weak, 12(24%), 22(44%) were moderate and 7(14%) and 8(16%) were Strong biofilm former for E. coli and K. pneumoniae, respectively.

Part of the book: The Global Antimicrobial Resistance Epidemic