Antibiotic Susceptibility and Molecular Characterization of Escherichia coli O157 Isolates from Urinary Tract Infections.

BACKGROUND

Escherichia coli O157 is an important food-borne pathogen that can cause diarrhoea, hemorrhagic colitis, and hemolytic uraemic syndrome. Enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus sequence PCR (ERIC-PCR) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) are good methods for molecular typing and the extensive use of antibiotics is a contributing factor to the increasing incidence of antimicrobial-resistant for these strains.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence, antimicrobial resistance, and genetic diversity of E. coli O157 based on the prevalence of urinary tract infection (UTI) in Hubei, China.

RESULTS

We obtained 23 (8.07%) E. coli O157 isolates from 285 UTI patients in Hubei, China. All isolates were subjected to antibiotic susceptibility analysis, and molecular typing was performed using ERIC-PCR and MLST. Antimicrobial susceptibility results indicated that most strains were resistant to penicillin (95.65%), chloramphenicol (73.91%), and ampicillin (69.57%). All isolates were discovered to be multiresistant (resistance to more than 3 antibiotics). Genetic variability analysis showed that all of the isolates were grouped into 4 clusters both by ERIC-PCR and MLST.

CONCLUSION

Our findings demonstrated the presence of E. coli O157 in UTIs, provided insights into the dissemination of antibiotic-resistant strains, and improved our knowledge of E. coli O157 risk assessment in UTIs.