Molecular Detection of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Study the Effect of Fresh Garlic juice on Some Virulence Factors of this Bacteria

The present study included the collection of 169 samples from various clinical and environmental sources for investigation of existence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in those sources, the clinical samples collected from some hospitals in Baghdad city and included 126 samples of wound, burns, cystic fibrosis, ear infections and urinary tract infections (35, 52,4, 22 and 13) samples respectively, while environmental samples were distributed by 25 samples from soil, and 18 samples from wastewater and some swamps. Samples were identified based on the morphological and microscopical characteristics of the colonies when they were culturing in a number of culture media as well as biochemical tests. The molecular detection was used to confirm diagnostic test for the isolates based on the 16SrRNA gene, as a detection gene, which has specific sequences for DNA of P.aeruginosa bacteria.The results of molecular detection showed that 51 isolates belong to target bacteria were distributed as 20 of burns, 9 isolates of wounds, 7 isolates of ear infection, 4 isolates of cystic fibrosis, 2 isolates of urinary tract infection, 5 isolates of soil and 4 isolates of water. The results of phenotypic detection of some virulence factors showed that 49 isolates with percent (95%) produced beta-hemolysis, while 46 isolates (90%) showed variance in the strength of pycocyanin production with a absorbance ranging from (0 to 0.52) at 690 nm, and 47 (92%) of isolates were producing protease enzyme, 44 (86%) of the isolates showed a differences in their ability to biofilm formation. As a result of the increased resistance of P.aeruginosa bacteria towards antibiotics, it is became a problem in the treatment of the infectious diseases caused by this bacteria therefore, the current study focused on the use of fresh garlic extract towards of some virulence factors because it being easy and commonly used. The results of the statistical analysis showed a significant difference when P-value ( 0.05) in the production of some virulence factors, the isolates lost their ability to form biofilm, and decreased their ability to produce protease enzyme, and pyocyanin pigment, while did not affect the production of hemolycin.