The challenge of combating the ever emerging multi-drug resistant (MDR) clinical isolates in the face of a slow rate of discovery
of new classes of antibiotics is a problem in antibiotic chemotherapy. This study was aimed at (i) linking phenotypic antibiotic
drug-resistance characteristics detected in randomly-sampled clinical isolates with detectable genetic markers. (ii) screening a
suspected efflux pump inhibitor (EPI) [1-(3-(trifluoromethyl)benzyl]-piperazine (TFMBP)], which could be helpful in
combating this challenge. Fifty-one isolates; 28
Klebsiella pneumonia
, 3
E. Coli
, 1
Enterobacter cloacae
, 1
E. aerogenes
, 5
Proteus mirabilis
, 4
Providencia rettgeri
, 1
P. stuartii
, 1
Serratia liquefaciens
, 6
S. odorifera
, and 1
Acinetobacter baumannii
obtained from infections of urinary tract, upper respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract, ear swab, eye swab, and blood culture
were screened for (i) antibiotic-susceptibility over a range of 11 classes of antibiotics, (ii) β-lactamase production, (iii) ESBL
production and (iv) Efflux pump activity (EPA) in the presence and absence of 1-[3-(trifluoromethyl) benzyl]-piperazine
(TFMBP). Molecular analysis was done using DNA extraction by boiling and the randomly-amplified polymorphic DNA
(RAPD) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) procedure with 2% agarose gel electrophoresis stained with ethidium bromide at 10
µg/ml and visualized by UV trans-illumination. AmpC
β-lactamase (4%) and K1
β-lactamase (5.8%) were detected with no
carbapenemase producers.
AcrA and AcrB marker genes were detected in 12% of the isolates while
blaCTX-M (8%) and
blaTEM
(4%) were also detected. Antibiotic resistance due to EPA can be combated with a suitable EPI as demonstrated by TFMBP
when combined with specific antibiotics
