Abstract Background: The antimicrobial resistant bacteria, Escherichia coli , is a significant health care problem worldwide. Objectives: Current study’s objective is to assess phenotypically and molecularly the characteristics of carbapenem-resistant genes among E. coli isolates in Al-Hilla city. Materials and Methods: During six-month study, 320 (49.5%) isolates were identified with E. coli that were obtained from 646 midstream urine specimens. Carbapenems resistance gene detected phenotypically that confirmed by modified Hodge test. Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method was employed to evaluate 11 antimicrobial compounds for antibiotic susceptibility. The prevalence of E. coli expressing the Extended-spectrum β-lactamases was assessed by polymerase chain reaction for the following genes: bla TEM , bla SHV , and bla CTX-M . Results: Only 320 (49.5%) of 646 clinical isolates were identified as E. coli . All isolates were resistant to amoxicillin (279) 87.1% and ampicillin (243) 75.9%, and the majority of these isolates were sensitive to meropenem (255) 79.6% and imipenem (209) 65.3%. Only 20 isolates were resistant to carbapenems antibiotics based on phonotypic detections methods, whereas genotypic results revealed positive for special primers including the bla CTX-M , bla TEM , and bla SHV genes. Conclusions: Through our research, it was determined that women suffer from higher rates of infections of the urinary tract than men undertake. Our research also revealed that whereas the majority of the isolates were sensitive to the antibiotics meropenem and imipenem, the majority of the isolates were also resistant to the antibiotics amoxicillin and ampicillin. Only twenty E. coli isolates have been found that are resistant to carbapenem antibiotics, according to antibiotic sensitivity tests. However, genetic detections revealed that these isolates have high prevalence of the genes bla CTX-M , bla TEM , and bla SHV , respectively.
Al-Assady et al. (Thu,) studied this question.