Occurrence and molecular characterization of multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii isolated from humans and dogs

[Abstract] This study investigated the occurrence, antibiogram and molecular characterization of Acinetobacter baumannii in hospitalized humans and dogs. A total of 120 clinical samples including (64 sputum, 40 urine samples from human and 16 wound swabs from dogs) were cultured on MacConkey agar plates and CHROMagar Acinetobacter medium. Sixty two A. baumannii strains were identified from both human and animal sources with a percentage of 51.7%. The occurrence of A. baumannii was 56.3% in sputum and 35% in urine and 75% in wound swabs. All 62 A. baumannii isolates were tested for the antimicrobial susceptibility by disc diffusion method. Colistin showed a lowest resistance percentage (3.2%), while a complete resistance (100%) of A. baumannii strains was for aztreonam. Moreover, the recovered 62 A. baumannii strains were screened by PCR for integrase genes (intI1 & intI2). Integron-positive isolates (29.03%; 18/62) harbored both intI1 & intI2 genes. The distribution of integrases was 30.6 % in sputum- recovered strains, 28.5% in urine-originated isolates and 25% in wound-identified strains. This study clarified that multidrug-resistant A. baumannii strains of dog and human origin implicated a zoonotic potential; and PCR integrase gene is useful in screening the epidemic strains of A. baumannii.