Extracellular Hydrolytic Enzymes and Location of Multidrug Resistance Markers in Urinary Bacterial Isolates

The extracellular hydrolytic enzymes and location of multidrug resistance markers in urinary bacterial isolates were determined using appropriate culture media, disc diffusion technique and acridine orange. The percentages of occurrence of the isolates were: Escherichia coli (28.1 %), Staphylococcus aureus (16.1 %), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (14.3 %), Klebsiella pneumoniae (8.9 %), Enterococcus faecalis (7.1 %), Proteus spp. (7.1 %), Coagulase negative (CoN) Staphylococcus spp. (7.1 %), Citrobacter freundii (5.4%) and Streptococcus spp. (5.4 %). The antibiogram results evidently showed ciprofloxacin as the most effective drug against the uropathogens. All the Streptococcus spp. were sensitive to Gentamycin; between 70.0 % and 75.0 % S. aureus, E. faecalis, P. aeruginosa and K. pneumoniae were sensitive to Ceftriaxone; = 40.0% Streptococcus spp and CoN Staphylococcus spp. were resistant to Nalidixic Acid, while resistance of the isolates to Penicillin, Cotrimoxazole and Augmentin ranged from 16.7 to 50.0%. The results showed that 29 (25.9%) of the isolates were resistant to at least one antibiotic and = 42 (37.5 %) isolates exhibited multiple antibiotic resistance. Of 42 multi drug resistant (MDR) isolates, 6 (14.3%) and 5 (11.9%) isolates had their entire antibiotic resistance markers located on the chromosomes and plasmids, respectively, while 31/ 42 (73.8 %) isolates had their antibiotic resistance markers residing both on the plasmids and chromosomes. Of the 23 streptomycin resistant isolates, 14 (60.9%) showed resistant to streptomycin in spite of using different volumes of acridine orange. The occurrence of the antibiotic resistance markers on plasmids can bring about the horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes among the uropathogenic bacterial isolates through conjugation process.