Screening of Multi-Drug and Metal Resistant Aeromonas Species from Diverse Sources

Abstract

The abuse of antibiotics in the modern era, lead the microorganisms to develop resistance. Antibiotic resistance becomes the part of natural selection in bacteria which allows them to survive in different environments. Bacteria like Aeromonas are able to adapt to changes in the environment such as an increase in antibiotic concentration, which often results in the development of mutations allowing them to survive in unfavourable conditions. The origin of antibiotic resistance in the environment is relevant to human health and there is an urgent need for predicting emerging resistant pathogenic microorganisms. As Aeromonas sp. has been reported as emerging pathogen, the multi-drug resistance was screened for the Aeromonas isolates obtained from fish intestine, clinical and environmental sources, against commercially available antibiotics and it was found that 95% of the isolates developed resistance towards atleast one antibiotic. The emergence of antibiotic resistance in bacterial populations is a relevant field of study in molecular and evolutionary biology as well as in medical practice. The minimum inhibitory concentration of metals were performed for the isolates and it revealed that silver nitrate at 250 µM and copper sulphate at 8 mM concentration inhibited the growth of isolates. Further the metal resistance encoding genes, silP and copA were screened and it was found to be positive in 70% and 43% of the isolates, respectively.