Emergence of New Delhi Metallo-β-Lactamase (NDM) Genes Detected from Clinical Strains of Escherichia coli Isolated in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Abstract

The emergence and spread of carbapenem resistance in Gram-negative bacilli such as <i>Klebsiella pneumoniae</i>, <i>Escherichia coli</i>, <i>Acinetobacter baumannii</i>, and <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i> through the production of carbapenemases is a global phenomenon. It threatens patient care and leads to therapeutic impasses. This study aims to genotypically determine the prevalence of the most frequent carbapenemase genes among multidrug-resistant <i>E. coli</i> strains isolated from patients at a biomedical analysis laboratory. A total of fifty-three unduplicated <i>E. coli</i> strains isolated from patient samples with a multidrug-resistant (MDR) profile were subjected to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for carbapenem resistance genes. This study allowed us to identify fifteen strains carrying resistance genes among the fifty-three <i>E. coli</i> strains. All fifteen strains produced the metallo-<i>β</i>-lactamase enzymes; this represents a rate of 28.30% of study strains. Among these strains, ten carried the NDM resistance gene, NDM and VIM genes were detected in three strains and VIM was identified in two strains of <i>E. coli</i>. However, carbapenemases A (KPC and IMI), D (OXA-48), and IMP were not detected in the strains studied. Thus, NDM and VIM are the main carbapenemases detected in the strains in our study.