Frequency of oqxAB Genes in Klebsiella Pneumoniae Isolated from Khorramabad Hospitals

Klebsiella pneumoniae is one of the important cases of community acquired infections and hospital infections. Increasing the emergence of multidrug resistance among hospital isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae has limited treatment options for the treatment of infections caused by this bacterium. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of oqxA and oqxB genes in Klebsiella pneumoniae clinical isolates.

In this study, samples consist of all persons who were referred to the hospitals in Khorramabad during the last 6 months. Laboratory samples were evaluated in a differential and biochemical way and their antibiotic susceptibility were evaluated by disc diffusion method. DNA was extracted by boiling and the genes were identified by specific primers using PCR.

Out of 100 samples, 63 (63%) were male and 37 (37%) were female. The highest resistance was respectively to cefotaxime, amikacin, tetracycline and the highest sensitivity was related to levofloxacin, and ceftazidime. In all isolates, 57 isolates were resistant; among those the prevalence of oqxA and oqxB genes was 26.3% and 56.1%, respectively.

The results of this study showed that the prevalence of oqxB gene was higher than oqxA gene and it was found that there was increased resistance to fluoroquinolones in the studied isolates.