Molecular characterization of third generation cephalosporin resistant in E. coli isolated from urinary tract infection

Background:Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) are quite possibly of the most widely recognized bacterial problems around the world, affecting many individuals in both sex, especially women, so UTI is related to Urogynecology. The most common bacteria that causes UTIs is uropathogenic E. coli. Although Third Generation Cephalosporins (3GCs) have proven to be efficacious in treating UTIs, there is a rise in antibiotic resistance presents a serious risk to public health. Aim: The reason of this work is to determine which genes make E. coli resistant to 3GCs. Methods: One hundred urine samples were gathered from hospitalized patients and outpatients who had Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) visiting Balad general hospital, Saladin governorate, from November 2023 until March 2024, the specimens were cultured on MacConkey and positive pure growths of E. coli were confirmed by API 20 after that subjected to disc diffusion testing against six different antibiotics then screened against antibiotic resist ESBLS (blaTEM, blaSHV, blaOXA and blaCTX-M) genes. Results: most of UTI cases were female (85/100, 85%). Twenty-four (24) E. coli isolates were obtained from UTIs, the majority of the E. coli isolates were found to be resistant to antibiotics, as indicated by the antibiogram results: 100% to Cefoperazone, 95.8% to cefotaxime, 86.7 to ceftriaxone, 83.3% to cefexime, 83.3% to cefpodoxime, and 83.2% to ceftazidime. The consequences of the study uncovered those 21 (87.5%) isolates contained blaTEM gene, same for blaSHV, 22 (91.6%) isolates contained blaOXA gene, and 20 (83.3%) isolates contained blaCTX-M gene. Conclusion: The current study confirms the prevalence of multidrug resistance E. coli and coexistence of ESBLS genes in most E. coli isolated from UTI patient, which most of them are females.