Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Pharmacy - Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Aim of this study: 1) performing an epidemiological surveillance of multi-drugresistant (MDR) A. baumannii genetic lineages in Egypt using the PCR-based open reading frame typing (POT) method.2) investigating the protease CpaA encoding gene amongst A.baumannii clinical isolates and its correlation with coagulation abnormalities in infected cancer patients. Methods: A total of 160 MDR A.baumannii isolates were collected between January 2015 and December 2017 at a tertiary centre. Vitek2® system was used for preliminary species identification and susceptibility testing. Conventional PCR was utilized for confirming the species identification and detecting the presence of the cpaA gene amid isolates. The POT method was applied for molecular epidemiological typing of the isolates. The effect of the A. baumannii isolates on blood coagulation factors was investigated in vitro by measuring prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT). Results: MDR A. baumannii isolates were classified into 15 POT types including POT 122 (n=69), POT 69 (n=22), and other miscellaneous POT types (MPOTs) (n=69). POT 122 isolates infected more frequently adult patients with solid tumours hospitalized in surgical wards. While MPOTs isolates more often infected paediatric patients with haematological malignancies hospitalized in paediatric wards (p = 0.007, 0.004, 0.001, respectively)

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