Investigation of antimicrobial sensitivity and antibiotic resistance genes of E.coli strains isolated from Duhok (Iraq) region by molecular methods

In this study, 365 E. coli UTI infection isolates were collected from clinical cases from three major hospitals in Duhok and Zakho / Iraq during the period from March 2021 to September 2021. 43 biochemical tests were performed to identify the species of E. coli isolates collected. 205 (56.16%) of these were isolated from male patients and 165 (43.83%) from female patients. 100 E. coli isolates were randomly selected and subjected to antibiotic susceptibility testing. Many of those tested showed high levels of resistance to the antibiotic. Of all the antimicrobial agents, imipenem was detected to be the strongest, while Ampcillin, Gentamicin, Amikacin, and Nalidixic acid had the least effect on these isolates. Genomic DNA was extracted from these selected isolates using two methods. One hundred isolates were extracted with a commercial kit, with an average of the concentration of genomic DNA extracted using the commercial kit at 115.25ng/µl with a purity of 1.8. To confirm that the genome of all these isolates is E. coli, all strains with a molecular weight of approximately 657 bp were successfully amplified, producing a single band of uidA as the species-specific gene. The results revealed that Pai and hyl genes related to virulence and antibiotic resistance were absent from any of the tested markers in 10 (28%) of these isolates. As a marker for the presence of a pathogenicity island, the Pai gene is the most dominant marker among all other virulence markers with 75%, followed by the hyl gene with 69 percent.