Assessment of inducible clindamycin resistance and Hyper Variable Region (HVR) of mecA gene in clinical staphylococci

Objective: To study the prevalence of inducible clindamycin along with vancomycin and methicillin resistance and assessment of hyper variable region (HVR) of mecA gene among different clinical isolates of Staphylococcus spp. Methods: A total of 176 clinical isolates of Staphylococci were collected from Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Islamabad during 2014-2015. The sample sources were pus, blood, urine, sputum, tracheal secretions and tissue fluids. Bacterial identification was done by colony morphology and biochemical tests. Kirby-Bauer disc-diffusion method was carried out to assess the susceptibility against different antibiotics. Minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were done for vancomycin resistance. Double Disk Diffusion test (D-test) was used to detect the clindamycin inducible resistance. PCR was performed to detect erm(C), mecA and HVR genes. Results: Clindamycin inducible resistance among Staphylococcal isolates was found to be 7%, whereas in S. aureus it was 4%, and in coagulase negative Staphylococci (CoNS) it was 11%. The highest resistance was observed against fosfomycin, fusidic acid and cefoxitin. Vancomycin resistance was observed in 23 isolates (13%) of Staphylococci. erm(C), mecA and HVR genes were found in 18%, 50% and 42% respectively. Conclusions: D-test must be performed routinely to avoid clindamycin failure. A high level of resistance against vancomycin in Staphylococcal isolates is a concern for public health. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.2.665 How to cite this:Khan AA, Farooq J, Abid M, Zahra R. Assessment of inducible clindamycin resistance and Hyper Variable Region (HVR) of mecA gene in clinical staphylococci. Pak J Med Sci. 2020;36(2):136-140. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.2.665 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.