GENETIC DIVERSITY AND ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY OF Morganella morganii BY NEXT GENERATION SEQUENCING

Abstract

Morganella morganii is one of serious causative agent of urinary tract infection (UTI). Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a serious danger to human health and welfare on global scale and must be addressed on urgent basis. The objective of the current study is to determine the prevalence of Morganella morganii in KP Pakistan, identification of antimicrobial resistance genes associated with antimicrobial resistance by next generation sequencing method and evaluation of antibiotics susceptibility against Morganella morganii by disc diffusion method. A descriptive crossectional study was conducted at Khyber Teaching Hospital Peshawar Pakistan.  Male and female patients of all ages who were infected with Morganella morganii were included and antibiotics prophylaxis patients and patients who were unwilling to give sample were excluded from the current study. All the bioinformatics analysis were performed by using different types of Bioinformatic tool such as Trimmomatic, fastqc toolkit, SPAdes, Prokka, CARD, PATRIC and Geneious.   Total 200 samples (midstream urine) were collected. Out of 200 urine sample 20 cases of Morganella morganii were identified 6 cases in male and 14 cases in female patients. Morganella morganii were more prevalent in the females having mean age of 40-60 years and male having mean age of (20-40) years. Morganella morganii were sensetive to antibiotics included meropenem (100%) and imipenem (100%) and amikacin (95%) antibiotic while resistant to Co-amoxiclav (100%), cefepime (95%), Ceftazidime (95%), Chloramphenicol (90%) and ampicillin (70%). Using shotgun sequencing 10 important antibiotics resistance genes were identified which includes DHA-27, KpnH, fosA8, gyrB, ArNT, CRP, rsmA, PBP3, qacG and EF-Tu. Phylogenetic analysis of identified strain revealed closely resembled with Morganella morganii Kt 1124991.3 and Morganella sp. GLFB 1326758.3 strains while the important identified antimicrobial resistant genes show similarity with genes identified in Tiawani population. Our study revealed lower prevalence as compared to other UTI causing bacteria in kp. Moreover, shot sequencing revealed that presence of different antibiotics resistant genes in single multiple drug resistant (MDR). This study is conducted in one region and emergence of such MDR strain of Morganella morganii is important health issue. Therefore, further studies are required to prevent the spread of antimicrobial resistance genes in Morganella morganii.