Investigation of antibiotic resistance, biofilm formation, entB and mrkD virulence factors of Klebsiella pneumoniae isolated from respiratory tract infected patients

Klebsiella pneumoniae, known to pose a major threat to public health, is the most common agent of hospital and community-acquired infections. The purpose of this work was to study the relationship between virulence factors entB and mrkD expressed in Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates from respiratory patients. Total 90 clinical samples were collected from patients of both sexes and different age groups suffering from respiratory problems. Twenty-two clinical specimens of Klebsiella pneumoniae identified by standard diagnostic isolation methods were isolated and using the VITEK 2 instrument. The samples were tested for sensitivity to a range of antibiotics using the disk diffusion method. The presence of the virulence factors mrkD and entB was tested using PCR technology, and the ability of the isolates to display these genes was studied using RT-qPCR technology. It was found that 18 samples (81.81%) produced biofilms and 4 samples (18.19%) were non-productive. The samples that showed the mrkD gene were in 18 isolates (81.81%), four isolates (18.19%) had weak gene expression. The entB gene were shown to possess in 18 isolates, three samples (13.64%) had moderate gene expression and one sample (2.55%) had weak gene expression.