The emergence of opportunistic Acinetobacter spp. in healthcare settings poses a significant threat to public health. The major reasons for nosocomial spread of these species are their abilities to develop and transfer drug resistance against various classes of antibiotics. Considering that Acinetobacter spp. are ubiquitous in nature, can utilize several carbon sources, and reach humans via various pathways, our aim was to obtain information about the environmental strains of this genus. Our first step was to develop and test a multistep isolation procedure based on traditional scientific methods. Antibiotic resistance patterns of the isolated strains were determined, as susceptibility to 12 antibiotics of 7 classes was tested by MIC Test Strip method. Altogether 366 samples (groundwater, surface water, and soil) of 24 sites were investigated and a collection of 37 Acinetobacter isolates was obtained. Among others, clinically important human pathogen Acinetobacter spp., such as A. baumannii, A. johnsonii, and A. gyllenbergii were identified. Three environmental strains were determined as multidrug-resistant including a carbapenem-resistant, hemolytic Acinetobacter beijerinckii strain isolated from a hydrocarbon-contaminated groundwater sample. In summary, it has been found that the applied multistep isolation procedure is applicable to isolate various species of Acinetobacter genus. Based on the antibiotic resistance assay, we can conclude that environmental representatives of Acinetobacter spp. are able to develop multidrug resistance, but at a lower rate than their clinical counterparts.
Keywords: antibiotic resistance; environmental samples; isolation protocol.