Characteristics of Antibiotic Resistance and Tolerance of Environmentally Endemic <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>

• Main Authors: Seryoung Kim (Author), Satomi Masai (Author), Keiji Murakami (Author), Momoyo Azuma (Author), Keiko Kataoka (Author), Mayu Sebe (Author), Kazuya Shimizu (Author), Tomoaki Itayama (Author), Niwooti Whangchai (Author), Kanda Whangchai (Author), Ikko Ihara (Author), Hideaki Maseda (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: MDPI AG, 2022-08-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 10.3390/antibiotics11081120; 2079-6382
• Keywords: <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>; antibiotic-tolerance; antibiotic-resistance; environment; Therapeutics. Pharmacology; RM1-950
• Source: Antibiotics, Vol 11, Iss 8, p 1120 (2022)

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria remain a serious public health threat. In order to determine the percentage of antibiotic-resistant and -tolerant <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i> cells present and to provide a more detailed infection risk of bacteria present in the environment, an isolation method using a combination of 41 °C culture and specific primers was established to evaluate <i>P. aeruginosa</i> in the environment. The 50 strains were randomly selected among 110 isolated from the river. The results of antibiotic susceptibility evaluation showed that only 4% of environmental strains were classified as antibiotic-resistant, while 35.7% of clinical strains isolated in the same area were antibiotic-resistant, indicating a clear difference between environmental and clinical strains. However, the percentage of antibiotic-tolerance, an indicator of potential resistance risk for strains that have not become resistant, was 78.8% for clinical strains and 90% for environmental strains, suggesting that <i>P. aeruginosa</i>, a known cause of nosocomial infections, has a high rate of antibiotic-tolerance even in environmentally derived strains. It suggested that the rate of antibiotic-tolerance is not elicited by the presence or absence of antimicrobial exposure. The combination of established isolation and risk analysis methods presented in this study should provide accurate and efficient information on the risk level of <i>P. aeruginosa</i> in various regions and samples.