Clonal dissemination of a single Shigella sonnei strain among Iranian children during Fall 2012 in Tehran, I.R. Iran

Shigella species are a common cause of bacterial diarrhea worldwide and the disease is characterized by seasonality. Shigella has been encountered by widespread resistance to commonly used antibiotics which is a serious concern. The aim of this study was to analyze the epidemiological relatedness of Shigella strains isolated from children during one year period by PFGE method and to investigate antimicrobial resistance determinants and cassettes among Shigella species. The occurrence of Shigella spp. in the present study was 1.32% during the study period and the majority of cases (56 (80%)) were occurred during autumn while Shigella sonnei was the most prevalent species identified. Multi-drug resistance phenotype was seen in 98.5% of total isolates with SXT(r)/TE(r)/TMP(r) resistance pattern. Among the 70 Shigella spp. analyzed in this study, 16 isolates were positive for class I integron (int1(+)) with two types of gene cassette arrays (dfrA17/aadA5 and dfrA7).The class 2 integron was more frequently detected among the isolates (85.71%) with dfrA1/sat1/aadA1 (10%) and dfrA1/sat1 (75.71%) gene cassettes. The tetA and tetB determinants were observed in 75.7% and 21.42% of Shigella isolates and tet(A) was the foremost in S. sonnei and Shigella flexneri population. In this study 5 tetracycline resistant isolates had no tetracycline resistance gene (A-D) and no association was recognized between the value of MIC against tetracycline and the tet genes content of isolates. Fifty three of total Shigella isolates (75.7%) showed an identical PFGE patterns. Seven PFGE clusters observed in our study were composed of members with one to three band variations, which is indicative of closely related isolates. The major cluster (cluster C) constituted 75.7% of total isolates, all of which (except eight isolates) consonantly showed identical class 2 integron of 1500 bp which strongly suggests the dissemination of a single S. sonnei clone among the pediatric population in 2012 autumn in Tehran, Iran, in comparison with the equal data from the comparable time period from recent years.