Isolation and Molecular Characterization of Bacterial Isolates from Diabetic Patients with Urinary Tract Infections

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is one of the most challenging health problems of 21st century and is the fifth leading cause of death in developed countries. Asian patients are considered to have a higher risk of developing diabetes and potentially worse prognosis. By 2025, the number of individuals with diabetes is expected to be more than doubled. Urinary tract infection (UTI) poses serious future clinical repercussions, such as hypertension, anemia, kidney failure and death. Therefore, there is the need for the early detection and diagnosis of UTI. Currently, the use of the standard microbiological culture diagnostic method is hindered by the microbial tendency of being viable but non-cultural. On the other hand, molecular detection by direct Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique has proven to be more sensitive in detecting pathogens in various biological samples, this work was thus aimed at the design of a simple and reliable PCR protocol for detecting uropathogens and comparing it with dipstick and culture, using Escherichia coli as the indicator uropathogen. This study, a cross-sectional one, involved the collection of urine samples from 272 Adolescent students, aged between 13 and 18 years. Pathogens were identified by using morphological and biochemical tests. The PCR protocol targeted a more specific pap C gene for fimbriae formation and the bacitracin usp gene sequences for amplification. A general prevalence of 30.9% UTI was found. Using a sub-population made up of 195 subjects, for the comparative diagnosis of the three methods, the prevalence were 42.1%, 39.8% and 72.7% for dipstick, microbiological culturing and PCR respectively.