Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Carbapenem resistant Pseudomonas infections become a serious problem with limited options of treatment.Therefore, a vast number of approaches to develop novel anti-microbial agents are currently developed. Many studies support the role of vitamin D in competing different types of infections in vivo by many mechanisms through enhancing host immune defense; it also may have a direct antibacterial action by itself. The current study was designed to assess the antimicrobial modulatory effect of vitamin D on carbapenem resistant Pseudomonas species.Fifty carbapenem resistant Pseudomonas isolates were studied. All Pseudomonas isolates were tested for their susceptibility to imipenem and meropenem using disk diffusion method. Modified carbapenem inactivation methods were done for carbapenemase and metallobetalactamase detection. All isolates were tested for MIC of meropenem and vitamin D by broth microdilution and their combination by checkerboard method. Regarding the combination between meropenem and vitamin D; out of the 50 isolates,10 (20%) isolates showed decrease in their MIC of meropenem. Additive result (FICI = 0.53) was observed in one of them, 5 isolates (10%) showed decrease in MIC of meropenem more than 2 folds, while 4 isolates (8%) showed 2 folds decrease in MIC of meropenem.There is a significant relation between adding vitamin D and improving sensitivity of carbapenem resistant pseudomonas to merpenem

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