African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 6 (15), pp. 1757-1762, 6 August 2007   

ISSN 1684–5315 © 2007 Academic Journals        

Full Length Research Paper

Widespread plasmid resistance genes among Proteus species in diabetic wounds of patients in the Ahmadu Bello university teaching hospital (ABUTH) Zaria

Yah, S. C¹, Eghafona, N. O¹, Oranusi, S.² and Abouo A. M.¹

¹Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Benin, Edo State, Nigeria

²Department of Microbiology, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria

*Corresponding author. E-mail: yahclar@yahoo.com. Phone: +2348053336108 or +2348063418265.

Accepted 18 May, 2007

Plasmids have been known to play a major role in the dissemination of antibiotics resistance genes in a microbial population. In this background, 148 Proteus species comprising of 97 Proteus mirabilis and 51 Proteus vulgaris were isolated from diabetic wounds. Seventy-six strains had varied multi-drug resistance (MDR) pattern encoded on transferable plasmid gene with a very high frequency (2 x10^-4 to 4 x 10^-2 per donor cell) by conjugation. 34% of the strains lost the antibiotic resistance plasmids marker after sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) mediated curing. The rest of the plasmid markers were non transferable. The results indicated that plasmids carry varied dissemination of antibiotics resistance markers to distant recipient cells, indicating clonal transfer among bacterial strains.  

Key words: Resistant, plasmids, Proteus, diabetic, wounds.