Background: Escherichia coli (E. coli) is the most common bacterial species implicated in various types of infections including septicemia, gastroenteritis, urinary tract infections, meningitis and others pathologies. These involve several bacterial clones with multidrug resistance making them difficult to treat. The aims of this study was to perform molecular typing of E. coli strains using universal primer (GTG)5. In this study, 53 E. coli strains were collected from inpatients and outpatients. The test of antimicrobial sensibility was realized using CA-SFM /EUCAST method and strains were identified by conventional microbiological tests. The carbapenemase-producing strains were demonstrated by phenotypic method. Bacterial DNA was extracted by boiling method. (GTG)5-PCR was used for strain subtyping. The DendroUPGMA software was used for grouping of strains from the genetic fingerprints obtained by (GTG)5-PCR.
Results: Antibiotic susceptibility test revealed that all strains were multi-drug resistant (MDR). Its strains showed resistance to at least three different families of antibiotics. Of this MDR strains, only one was a metallo-β-lactamase producer. The dendrogram obtained using genetic fingerprinting allowed the E. coli strains to be grouped into 22 clusters (G1 to G22).
Conclusion: The (GTG) 5-PCR assay enabled rapid molecular typing of E. coli strains. The strains of E. coli typed in this study would belong to different clones.
Keywords: (GTG)5-PCR; E. coli; Molecular typing; Multidrug resistance.
© 2022. The Author(s).