Pseudomonas aeruginosa: Prevalence of Pathogenic Genes, OprL and ToxA in Human and Veterinary Clinical Samples in Ardabil, Iran, 2020

Background & Objective: An opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa can cause frequent hospital-acquired infections as well as one microorganism in the food spoilage. Also, the emergence of multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa has become a serious threat to public health.This pathogen has many virulence factors which aid in bacterial invasion as well as toxicity, during infections. Out of different virulence genes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, oprL (Encoding membrane lipoprotein L) and toxA (encoding exotoxin A i.e. ETA), are predominantly involved in, P. aeruginosa-related infections. 
Materials & Methods: A total of 120 specimens of the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa were collected from Veterinary microbiology and various hospital laboratories. The isolates were initially identified by culturing on MacConkey agar and Eosin Methylene blue (EMB) agar and were further characterized by morphological and biochemical tests. An antibiotic sensitivity test was carried out on 13 antibiotics using the disc diffusion method. Genotypic detection of oprL and toxA genes was performed using a specific PCR test. 
Results: The results revealed that the toxA gene was detected by 84.62% in isolates belonging to human samples and 75% in the isolates of animal samples, whereas the oprL gene was detected by 80.77% and only 16.67 % in the isolates were derived from human and animal samples, respectively. 
Conclusion: The PCR analysis can help in the fast and specific detection of oprL and toxA genes in P. aeruginosa. Monitoring of these pathogenic genes could prevent the risk of transmission of multi-drug resistant P. aeruginosa, from animals to humans.