Fecal carriage and phylodiversity of community-acquired bla TEM Enteric bacilli in Southwest Nigeria.

Purpose: Increasing rates of clonal spread of fecal bla _TEM bacilli remains a huge concern to the community health with resultant high morbidity. The fecal carriage and clonal diversity of bla _TEM within the communities in Southwest Nigeria were surveyed.
Materials and Methods: Enteric bacilli obtained from fresh fecal samples randomly collected from community residents were biotyped and profiled for antibiotic susceptibility. Resistant strains were typed for beta-lactamase, extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL), AmpC and carbapenemase production while the R-plasmid carriage was detected and mating activities were examined. The presence of bla _TEM gene was assayed by PCR and its phylodiversity determined with 16sRNA genomic profiling.
Results: Escherichia coli have the highest (28.6%) occurrence rate and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (20.5%) showing significant resistance to beta-lactamase inhibitors (ampicillin, cefuroxime and cefotaxime), and high-level multidrug resistance of more than 15.2% rate to ampicillin, cefuroxime, ceftazidime, tetracycline and imipenem. E. coli and Klebsiella oxytoca , are the highest beta-lactamase, ESBL and AmpC producers encoded with high molecular weight R-plasmid (>11.0 kbp) and significant rate of conjugation and transformational activities. Only 2/14, 1/13 and 1/6 ESBL-type of E. coli , K. oxytoca and Enterobacter cloaca, expressed bla _TEM gene, clustering into five different phylodiverse groups with close genomic relatedness with other bacilli.
Conclusion: This is an indication of clonal dissemination of ESBL bla _TEM encoded enteric bacilli having high phylodiverse characteristics through fecal carriage in the Nigerian community which requires public health education, food and environmental hygiene for its prevention.
Competing Interests: Disclosure The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.