Background: Klebsiella pneumoniae is armed with a wide range of antibiotic resistance mechanisms that mostly challenge effective treatment. The aims of the current study were to identify the clinical strains of K. pneumoniaealso to determine their phenotypes and molecular characterization related to antimicrobial resistance and virulence genes.
Research design and methods: In this investigation, clinical specimens from different hospitals located in Tehran, Iran, were collected during a nine-month period (December 2018 to August 2019). The K. pneumoniae strains were isolated and identified through standard microbial and biochemical assays. Additionally, disk diffusion, combined disk, Modified Hodge Test (MHT) and PCR were performed for antibiotic resistance and virulence gene analysis, respectively.
Results: Eighty-four isolates of K. pneumoniae were subjected to the study. According to the combined disk and modified Hodge test results, 27 (52%) and 15 pathotypes (62.5%) out of resistant strains of isolated K. pneumoniae were detected as ESBL and KPC producers. The virulence genes of mrkD (94%) and magA (11%) were the highest and lowest among isolates, respectively.
Conclusions: The high prevalence of antibiotic resistance and virulence genes in conjunction with a significant relationship between the strains revealed a high pathogenic capacity of the isolated pathotypes of K. pneumoniae.
Keywords: ESBL; Klebsiella pneumoniae; antibiotic resistance; molecular typing; virulence genes.