Urinary Tract Infections in Benin: Exploring the Virulence Factors and Antibiotic Resistance and Virulence Genes among Bacterial Isolates

Objective: The emergence and increasing spread of resistance to antibiotics in uropathogenic Enterobacteriaceae is a huge public health problem and increase the morbidity and mortality. The objective of this study was to produce scientific data on the virulence and level of resistance of these bacteria in Benin.

Results: This study was conducted on 230 strains of enterobacteria isolated from patients with urinary tract infections. These virulence factors sought were hemolysis, hemagglutination, serum resistance, biofilm formation, and the production of lipase, protease and lecithinase. The molecular characterization of the virulence and antibiotic resistance genes was accomplished by PCR according to the different conditions for each gene. The bacteria possessed several types of virulence factors such as hemagglutinin (28.26%), lipase production (23.92%) and hemolysin production (17.83%). The virulence gene identified were FimH (74.79%), PapC (30.44%), Iss (11.34%) and Biofilm (3.92%). The antibiotic resistance genes such as Bla-SHV (49.56%), Bla-CTX-M15, Bla-CTX-M2 (33.92%), Bla-CTX-M9 (19.13%) and bla-CTX-M1 (11.74%) were also detected.

Conclusion: These results filled the national gap about virulence and antimicrobial resistance of enterobacteria responsible of urinary tract infection and may be used to improve the management of patients in Benin.