• Ayşe Nur Sarı, Serap Süzük, Onur Karatuna, Dilara Öğünç, Ayşe Esra Karakoç, Zeynep Çizmeci, Hikmet Eda Alışkan, Füsun Cömert, Mustafa Zahir Bakıcı, Nezahat Akpolat, Fatma Feriha Çilli, Yasemin Zer, Aysel Karataş, Bahar Akgün Karapınar, Gülçin Bayramoğlu, Melda Özdamar, Fatma Kalem, Nuran Delialioğlu, Elif Aktaş, Nisel Yılmaz, Şaban Gürcan, and Zeynep Gülay.
• Dokuz Eylul University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medical Microbiology, Izmir, Turkey. SANKO University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medical Microbiology, Gaziantep, Turkey. aysenursari@gmail.com.
• Mikrobiyol Bul. 2017 Jul 1; 51 (3): 299-303.

AbstractColistin is a polymyxin antibiotic which is considered as one of the last line agents against infections due to multidrug resistant or carbapenem resistant gram-negative pathogens. Colistin resistance is associated with chromosomal alterations which can usually cause mutations in genes coding specific two component regulator systems. The first plasmid-mediated colistin resistance gene, mcr-1 was described in Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates in December 2015 and followed by another plasmid-mediated colistin resistance gene mcr-2 in 2016. The rapid and interspecies dissemination of plasmid-mediated resistance mechanisms through horizontal gene transfer, have made these genes considerably threatening. After the first reports, although mcr-1/mcr-2 producing Enterobacteriaceae isolates have been reported from many countries, there have been no reports from Turkey. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the presence of mcr-1/mcr-2 in clinical Enterobacteriaceae isolates from different parts of our country. A total of 329 Enterobacteriaceae isolates from 22 laboratories were collected which were isolated between March, 2015 and February, 2016. mcr-1/mcr-2 were investigated by polymerase chain reaction during February-March, 2016. Two hundred and seventeen of Klebsiella pneumoniae (66%), 75 of Salmonella spp. (22.8%), 31 of Esherichia coli (9.4%), 3 of Enterobacter cloacae (0.9%), 2 of Klebsiella oxytoca (0.6%) and 1 of Enterobacter aerogenes (0.3%) isolates were included to the study. Agarose gel electrophoresis results of PCR studies have shown expected band sizes for positive control isolates as 309 bp for mcr-1 and 567 bp for mcr-2. However, the presence of mcr-1/mcr-2 genes was not detected among the tested study isolates of Enterobacteriaceae. Although mcr-1/mcr-2 were not detected in our study isolates, it is highly important to understand the mechanism of resistance dissemination and determine the resistant isolates by considering that colistin is a last-line antibiotic against infections of multidrug or carbapenem resistant gram-negative bacteria. Thus, it is suggested that these mechanisms should be followed-up in both clinical and non-clinical (e.g. isolates from food animals, raw meats and environment) isolates of special populations.

16 keywords...

hide…