Prevalence of Integrons as the Carrier of Multidrug Resistance Genes among Clinical Isolates of Klebsiella

Background: Multidrug resistance is a serious problem in the treatment of urinary tract infections. Integrons are ancient structures that contain determinants of a site-specific recombination system to capture genes encoding antimicrobial resistance. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of multidrug resistant Klebsiella isolates in clinical specimens. In addition, the existence of integrons in resistant isolates was assessed by amplification of integrase genes. Methods: Susceptibility of 100 Klebsiella isolates was determined to 19 antibiotics by the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method and integron classes were detected. Then the multi-drug resistance association with the existence of the integrase gene was calculated by chi-squre and fisher exact tests. Results: According to antibiogram results, 54 isolates were multidrug resistant. By amplification of intergrase gene it was revealed that 27% of the isolates harbor integrons. Also by PCR-RFLP it was revealed that all of them were class 1. The existence of integrons was confirmed in 25 of our multidrug resistant isolates, indicating the frequency rate is high and integrons may be partly responsible for multidrug resistant. Conclusion: Multidrug resistance suggests that strategy for treatment of patients with Klebsiella infections needs to be revised. The possibility of transmission of resistance genes by integrons would be decreased by treatment of patients with the appropriate antibiotics.