The Emergence of Quinolone Resistant Shigella sonnei, Pondicherry, India

Ciprofloxacin resistant Shigella sonnei across the globe have been increasing alarmingly. In order to understand the emergence of S.sonnei with respect to ciprofloxacin resistance in our patient population, the following study was carried out. Of the 184 Shigella sp. Isolated from 2012 to 2015, 34 S.sonnei which were confirmed by standard methods and subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility testing were selected. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of 16/34 quinolone resistant isolates tested ranged from 4micrograms/ml to 16micrograms/ml for ciprofloxacin, from 16 micrograms/ml to 64 micrograms/ml for ofloxacin and from 16micrograms/ml to 64micrograms/ml for levofloxacin. Sequence determination of the quinolone resistance determining regions of gyrA, gyrB, parC, and parE genes showed mutations in GyrA at Gln69/Trp, Phe71/Ser, Ser72/Pro, Met75/Leu, Ser90/Cys, Met94/Leu, His106/Pro, Asn161/His, Thr163/Ala and in ParC at Ala64/Asp. Among the plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance (PMQRs) targets investigated,qnrB was the most (93.7%) prevalent followed by qnrC (18.7%). None hadqnrA, qnrS and qepA. Two (0.1%) of the isolates harboured theaac(6’)-lb gene. Drug accumulation assay detected the presence of efflux pump activity in 9/15 (60%) among ciprofloxacin resistant isolates. All isolates harboured the ipaH gene followed by ial (17.6%), sen (11.7%), set1A&set1B (5.8%) genes. None had stx1 element. PCR for Enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC) sequences resulted in 4 unique clusters, of which Type III was the most (44%) dominant but there was no correlation between the ERIC types and the antibiotic resistance pattern or the virulence profile. A documented increase in S.sonnei harbouring the qnrgenes and some unusual genes like set1Aand indicate an ongoing process of horizontal gene transfer. The accumulation of novel mutations in GyrA and ParC in the presence of efflux pump and PMQR genes contributed to the raised MIC to quinolones. These findings are crucial in our understanding of quinolone resistance in these isolates.