Detection and molecular characterization of β-lactamase genes in clinical isolates of Gram-negative bacteria in Southern Ecuador

• Main Authors: Diana Yessenia Calva Delgado, Zorayda Patricia Toledo Barrigas, Sofía Genoveva Ochoa Astutillo, Ana Paulina Arévalo Jaramillo, Alessio Ausili
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2016-11-01
• Series: Brazilian Journal of Infectious Diseases
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1413867016301179

This work performed a phenotypic and genotypic characterization of 79 clinical isolates of Enterobacteriaceae and Pseudomonadaceae collected in hospitals of Southern Ecuadorin 2013. Our results showed a high incidence of β-lactamases and ESBLs with blaTEM and blaCTX-M as the prevalent genes, respectively. By direct sequencing of PCR amplicons, the different β-lactamases and variants of the genes were also distinguished. Our results revealed a predominance of TEM-1 β-lactamase and the presence of different CTX-M variants with a prevalence of CTX-M-15. Two infrequent CTX-M variants in South America were also identified. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first studies describing the genetic characteristics of β-lactamases in Ecuador. Keywords: β-Lactam resistance, β-Lactamase, ESBL, Genotypic characterization