Drug resistance and plasmids of local clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in Lagos metropolis

Abstract

Antibiotic susceptibility testing of 50 clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from the lagos University Teaching Hospital was carried out.  All isolates were resistant to Ampicillin.  A large number of isolates were resistant to Nitrofurantoin and tetracycline (96%), and Co-trimoxazole (88%).  It is noteworthy that 46% of the isolates were sensitive to Gentamicin.  11 distinct multi-drug resistance patterns were observed in these isolates.  14% harboured plasmid DNA ranging in sizes from 1.51 to 83.18 Mdal.  22 different plasmids of varying molecular weights were found distributed in all the plasmid bearing isolates.  A 4.37 Mdal plasmid was found to be common to 6 of the 7 plasmid-bearing strains.  The results of this study reveal the emergence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains with increased resistance to commonly used antibiotics