PREVALENCE AND CHARACTERIZATION OF QUINOLONE RESISTANCE GENES IN ce:italic>PROTEUS/ce:italic> SPECIES ISOLATED FROM PET TURTLES

摘要

Proteusspp. are widely recognized as opportunistic pathogens causing urinary tract and septic infections in humans and animals. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance genes and mutations in the quinolone resistance determining region in association with the detection of quinolone susceptibility of 24 strains of pet turtle-borneProteusspp. Susceptibility of 4 antimicrobials including nalidixic acid, ciprofloxacin, ofloxacin, and levofloxacin was examined by disk diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration test. Six isolates were resistant to nalidixic acid showing either intermediate resistance or resistance to other quinolones. All nalidixic acid, resistant isolates harbored mutations ingyrB(N440T/A401G/Q411S). Two of the isolates had bothgyrA(S83I) andparC(S80I) mutations. Twenty-one isolates were positive for the presence of plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance genes; theqnrDgene had the highest prevalence with 19 (79.2%), whileqnrS, qnrA, qnrB,andaac(6′), Ib-crgenes were present in 9 (37.5%),2 (8.3%), 1 (4.2%), and 11 (45.8%) isolates, respectively. These results suggest that pet turtle-associatedProteusspp. should be considered a potential source of antimicrobial resistance determinants.