Title: COVID 19 and laboratory diagnosis during a time of supply chain concerns

Abstract:

Clinical Microbiology laboratories are continuing to be impacted particularly hard by the COVID 19 global pandemic and the urgent need to increase testing capacity for both COVID 19 and for other infectious diseases – particularly hospitalized and critical care patients.  As an example, blood culture collections have increased.  With this increased testing capacity demand, was the coincidental requirements for technology (i.e. instruments), reagents, plastics (i.e. assay trays, pipette tips), and additional technical laboratory staff.  A shortage of trained medical laboratory technologists (MLT) remains a challenge and this will likely continue as retirements will outpace new graduates.  Technology is promoted as an alternative to staffing shortages with a transition from “traditional” bench microbiology and microscopy to automated and semi-automated platforms including multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR), automated Gram staining, and total lab automation.  Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) has already revolutionized bacterial/yeast identification in labs with this technology.  Such technology advances offer exciting opportunities but have negative consequences related to the loss of traditional microbiology skill sets.  Clinically, however, clinicians are anxious for accurate results within shorter turn-around-times (TAT) that influence therapeutic decisions and/or patient flow and favor these technological advances.  Currently, there is a disconnect between the availability of equipment (weeks to months for delivery) and the availability of the necessary supplies/assays to operate these instruments.  The supply chain has been frequently cited as a concern during the COVID 19 pandemic.  In some instances, the limiting factor might be the availability of a specific pipette tip or reagent.  To meet testing demands in our diagnostic laboratory, we are operating similar technology from different vendors in an attempt to secure necessary supplies but this is not a guarantee.  This presentation will focus on testing for COVID 19 and other infectious diseases during a time of supply chain issues.

Biography:

Dr. J.M. Blondeau is Head of Clinical Microbiology at Royal University Hospital and the University of Saskatchewan and Provincial Lead for Clinical Microbiology with the Saskatchewan Health Authority.  To date, he has published 180 manuscripts and more than 250 abstracts at international meetings.  He is the Editor-In-Chief for the journal Expert Review on Respiratory Medicine.

Title: Impact of Chloramphenicol exposure on the transfer efficiency of multidrug resistance plasmids in Salmonella enterica

Abstract:

Salmonella enterica is a zoonotic pathogen that causes bacterial foodborne disease. Dissemination of multidrug resistance (MDR) phenotypes is considered a public health concern. Antimicrobial agents impact selective pressure that contributes to the emergence of MDR bacteria; however, little knowledge about the impact of the antimicrobial exposure, in this case, chloramphenicol, on the spread of antimicrobial resistance plasmids is known. Therefore, we established a study to assess the effects of chloramphenicol exposure on the response of six multidrug-resistant Salmonella isolates to determine the relative impact of chloramphenicol exposure on conjugation efficiency and plasmid transfer. Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: The MDR Salmonella isolates were examined to assess their ability to transfer plasmids to a susceptible Escherichia coli strain (J53) using antimicrobial exposure experiments. Six Salmonella isolates (142, 143, 163, 462, 710, and 452) with different plasmids profiles were selected to determine the impact of chloramphenicol exposure with different concentrations including non-antimicrobial exposure (control sample) to a concentration ranging from 0.0063 to 64 µg/ml on the plasmid transfer. Transconjugants from these experiments were evaluated through PCR-based replicon typing to determine if the plasmids transferred or not. The Salmonella donor isolates were sequenced using the Illumina-based whole-genome sequencing to detect the variation of potential genetic in regard to conjugation efficiency mechanism. Conclusion & Significance: Chloramphenicol exposure had a significant impact on the transfer of antimicrobial resistance among some Salmonella isolates in a dose-dependent manner. The results indicated there is a distribution of plasmids transfers among the six Salmonella isolates that were variable with different plasmids replicon types. These results are instrumental to ongoing studies to examine the different express genes on conjugation dynamic after chloramphenicol exposure among Salmonella isolates by using the RNA-seq analyses to identify the genetic pathways that contribute to resistance plasmid transfer following antimicrobial exposure.

Biography:

Suad Algarni was working as a visitor at the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR), Jefferson, AR, US. She is a doctoral candidate through the University of Arkansas under the supervision of Dr. Steven Foley in a research project to understand the impact of the exposure of the antibiotics such as chloramphenicol and tetracycline on the ability to transfer antimicrobial resistance in Salmonella. Some of these data studies have contributed to an abstract that has been accepted and presented at the Antimicrobial Resistance in Animals and the Environment conference in France, where Suad is one of the authors of the abstract. This approach should allow for more focused efforts are ongoing to develop tools to better understand the factors that drive the dissemination of plasmids and potentially can lead to the transfer of resistance within the GI microbiome.

Title: Investigation of the relationship between Antibiotic resistance pattern and class 1, 2 , 3 Integrons in Acinetobacter baumannii isolated from clinical samples of ICU patients of Dr. Mohammad Kermanshahi hospital in 2019

Abstract:

Statement of the Problem: Acinetobacter baumannii, an opportunistic pathogen with high antibiotic resistance, can cause various infections, especially among hospitalized patients in burn and surgery intensive care units. This study is to investigate the relationship between Antibiotic resistance pattern and class 1, 2, and 3 Integrons in Acinetobacter baumannii isolated from clinical samples of ICU patients of Dr. Mohammad Kermanshahi Hospital in 2019. Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: This study was done on 47 Acinetobacter baumannii isolates. Initial identification of the isolates was performed through phenotypic methods and final confirmation based on blaOXA-51 using the PCR method. Antibiotic susceptibility of the isolates was determined by disk – diffusion standard methods. The presence of class 1, 2, and 3 Integrons was investigated using the PCR method.  Findings: It can be seen that Cefepime showed the highest antibiotic resistance (100%) while Tigecycline (no resistance) and Colistin (8.51%) showed the lowest antibiotic resistance. The frequency of class 1(82.98%), 2(36.17%), and 3(no frequency) Integrons was determined. Conclusion & Significance: We came to this conclusion that Acinetobacter baumannii had a high level of antibiotic resistance. There was a significant relationship between the presence of class 1, 2, and 3 Integrons and antibiotic resistance of the isolates to some kinds of antibiotics.

Biography:

Shahram Bagherabadi is currently a research assistant at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (Dr. Mohammad Kermanshahi Hospital). It is currently working on identifying antibiotic resistance and preventing infections. He is interested in passing a Ph.D. course and working on genomes, cloning, and fast and innovative identification methods.