Title : Whole-genome sequencing reveals high-risk clones of clinical Pseudomonas aeruginosa among hospital admitted patients in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Abstract:
Background: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the most common bacterial pathogen associated with hospital-acquired infections. The emergence of carbapenem and colistin resistant P. aeruginosa becomes a significant public health problem that can be associated with increasing the mortality rate. The purpose of this study was to investigate the profile of colistin and carbapenem resistant in different Sequence Types (ST) of P. aeruginosa.
Methods: Cross-sectional study was conducted at Tikur Anbessa Specialized hospital and Yekatit 12 Specialized Hospital Medical College in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The isolates were detected using manual standard microbiological methods and confirmed using PCR. An antimicrobial susceptibility test was done by Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method and colistin broth disk elution test according to CLSI recommendations. The isolates were characterized by whole genome sequencing at the Science for life laboratory, Solna, Sweden to identify resistance genes and sequence types of P.aeruginosa strains.
Results: P.aeruginosa strains were found to be high rate of resistance to ciprofloxacin (51.9%) and netlomicin (50.6%). Out 79 P. aeruginosa isolates, 18(22.8%), 14(17.7%) and 12(15.2%) were found to be resistant to meropenem, imipenem and colistin respectively. Among the 10 isolates that were sequenced, eight different STs were identified. Three global high-risk clones of P. aeruginosa identified in this study were ST235, ST277 and ST 244. In current study, ST1710, ST316 and ST1189 were reported as novel types exhibiting extensive drug resistance. Most of β-lactams resistance genes, including: blaNDM-1, blaOXA-10, blaOXA-50, blaDIM-1, blaTEM-1B, blaPER-7 and blaCTX-M-15 were only detected in colistin resistant isolates.
Conculusion: In current study, WGS reveals high-risk clones of clinical Pseudomonas aeruginosa and novel ST types exhibiting extensive drug resistance in Ethiopia. High epidemiology of colistin resistance and emergence of a novel extensive drug resistance ST typing in Ethiopia is alarming and should be taken seriously.
Keywords: Pseudomonas aeruginosa, high-risk clones, colistin resistant
