Characterisation of Bacterial Isolates from Infected Post-Operative Patients in a Malaysian Tertiary Heart Care Centre

Abstract

Several bacterial species cause post-operative infections, which has been a critical health concern among hospital patients. Our study in this direction is a much-needed exploratory study that was carried out at the National Heart Institute (IJN) of Malaysia to examine the virulence properties of causative bacteria obtained from postoperative patients. The bacterial isolates and data were provided by the IJN. Antibiotic resistance gene patterns, and the ability to form biofilm were investigated for 127 isolates. Klebsiella pneumoniae (36.2%) was the most common isolate collected, which was followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (26%), Staphylococcus aureus (23.6%), Streptococcus spp. (8.7%) and Acinetobacter baumannii (5.5%). There were 49 isolates that showed the presence of multidrug resistance genes. The mecA gene was surprisingly found in methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA), which also carried the ermA gene from those erythromycin-susceptible strains. The phenotypic antibiotic resistance profiles varied greatly between isolates. Findings from the biofilm assay revealed that 44 of the 127 isolates demonstrated the ability to produce biofilms. Our findings provide insights into the possibility of some of these bacteria surviving under antibiotic stress, and some antibiotic resistance genes being silenced.

Keywords: ESBL genes; bacterial infection; postoperative patients.