Evalution of the Potential Antibiofilm Activity of Synthetic Peptide Idr-1018 Against Highly Virulent Clinical Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Isolates and Molecular Screening for the Prevalence of Toxinand Antitoxin Type Ii Genes

Abstract

Multi-drug resistance Pseudomonas aeruginosa considered a significant threat to human health according to the WHO. The antimicrobial synthetic peptides have taken a significant attention as options of antibiotic for dealing with resistant bacteria. A total of 200 samples were collected from different clinical sources including both sex with an age range between (5months - 58year) in the period between July to end of November 2024. Samples collected from five main hospitals. Out of 122 isolates, 60 isolates (49.18%) as P. aeruginosa depending on conventional and molecular methods and the highest frequent isolates were burn sources. All isolates were subjected to the sensitivity test against twelve antibiotics. The results revealed that most P. aeruginosa isolates were resistant to Ticarcillin-Clavulanate (93.3%) while the lowest resistance was towards Ceftazidime (41.7%). The Biofilm formation test was characterized into three categories: 23.3% strong adherent, 35% moderately adherent, 30% weakly adherent and 11.7% non-producing biofilm. Range of IDR-1018 concentrations (7.8-1000μg/ml) were examined against eight selected MDR P. aeruginosa isolates to determine the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of IDR-1018 peptide. The affected concentration of P. aeruginosa varies from 62.5μg/ml up to 1000μg/ml as MIC. All isolates were subjected to molecular screening to determine the prevalence of virulence factors encoded for toxin-antitoxin system-type II, the results highlighted that higBA, relBE, parDE genes were present in 100% among of isolates. In conclusion, the antimicrobial peptides IDR-1018 are characterized as promising agent for use as antimicrobial products.