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153100

Biofilms and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profiles of <i>Escherichia coli</i> Recovered from Wastewater Treatment Plants in Kakamega Municipality, Kenya

Article

Last updated: 22 Jan 2023

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Abstract

STUDIES have demonstrated high levels of ampicillin resistance among Escherichia coli occurring in wastewater and environmental systems in western Kenya. The current study investigated antimicrobial resistance profiles and biofilm formation abilities in presence and absence of sub-lethal ampicillin concentrations, of E. coli recovered from final sedimentation ponds of two wastewater treatment plants in Kakamega municipality. 34 non-duplicate E. coli isolates were recovered by direct plating of wastewater sample aliquots on MacConkey agar and their biofilm formation capabilities measured by crystal violet assay while disc diffusion and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) techniques were used to determine their antibiotic resistance levels and ampicillin resistance genes respectively. The Spearman's Chi-square test at P≤ 0.05 was used to check for interdependence between antimicrobial resistance and biofilm formation capabilities. 58.8% of the isolates were multi-drug resistant (MDR) and 85.3% showed resistance to ampicillin, which was found to be encoded by blaTEM in 65% and blaSHV in 8.8%. The biofilm phenotype was exhibited by 61.8% of all the isolates, amongst which 23.6% showed a strong, 14.7% a moderate and 23.6% a weak propensity to form biofilms. This study revealed lack of association between antibiotic resistance and biofilm formation, but interestingly, ampicillin concentration of 8.0μg/ml triggered the highest biofilm biomass among the isolates. The findings drive at the conclusion that biofilm production among E. coli in wastewater treatment plants(WWTPs) does not correlate with antibiotic resistance, but may be an important protection mechanism against sub-lethal antimicrobial levels present in environmental milieu.

DOI

10.21608/ejm.2021.41683.1171

Keywords

Ampicillin resistance genes, Biofilms, <i>Escherichia coli</i>, Wastewater treatment plants

Authors

First Name

Evans Anubi

Last Name

Boge

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of Biological Sciences, School of Natural Sciences, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 190, 50100, Kakamega, Kenya

Email

evanubi@gmail.com

City

KAKAMEGA

Orcid

0000-0002-3030-4596

First Name

Peter

Last Name

Nyongesa

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of Biological Sciences, School of Natural Sciences, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 190, 50100, Kakamega, Kenya

Email

pnyongesa2006@mmust.ac.ke

City

KAKAMEGA

Orcid

-

First Name

Patrick

Last Name

Okoth

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of Biological Sciences, School of Natural Sciences, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 190, 50100, Kakamega, Kenya

Email

okothpatrick@mmust.ac.ke

City

KAKAMEGA

Orcid

-

First Name

Anthony Wawire

Last Name

Sifuna

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of Medical Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 190, 50100, Kakamega, Kenya

Email

asifuna@mmust.ac.ke

City

KAKAMEGA

Orcid

-

Volume

56

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

30036

Issue Date

2021-12-01

Receive Date

2020-09-08

Publish Date

2021-12-01

Page Start

25

Page End

34

Print ISSN

0022-2704

Online ISSN

2357-0881

Link

https://ejm.journals.ekb.eg/article_153100.html

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https://ejm.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=153100

Order

3

Type

Original Article

Type Code

121

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Journal of Microbiology

Publication Link

https://ejm.journals.ekb.eg/

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Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023