Screening for sul1 and HemO gene in Stenotrophomonas maltophilia isolated from Patients in Iraq

Abstract

The opportunistic pathogen Stenotrophomonas maltophilia can be isolated in hospitals which is naturally resist to many common antibiotics, such as carbapenems and aminoglycosides. Current study involving 120 urine samples (included prostate cancer patient, bladder cancer patient, renal filer patient in addition to UTI infection patient) collected from Ghazi AL-Hariri  Hospital/Medical City Hospital and AL-Amal National Cancer Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq,  all urine samples were primary cultured on MacConkey, UTI media and blood agar as well as a selective and differential medium for S. maltophilia growth called VIA which contain (vancomycin, imipenem, and amphotericin B). Studying their antibiotic susceptibility pattern using Vitek 2 compact system and screening for presence of virulence genes using polymerase chain reaction technique. The results showed only 87 (72.5%) from total samples were give bacterial growth, involving various bacterial species. Stenotrophomonas percentage was 7/87(8%) of total bacteria growth, which show high resistance percentage to sulfonamide antibiotic 85.7%. the ratio of isolates carrying sul 1 gene was 7/7 (100%) and HemO gene was 3/7 (42.8%) so looking for new effective antibiotics could be an ideal course of treatment for infections owned to S. maltophilia, especially in patients who are critically sick and immunocompromised.