DOI: 10.4103/mjbl.mjbl_487_24 ISSN: 1812-156X

Validity of atpD Detection Versus 16S rRNA for Diagnosis of Proteus mirabilis

Doaa Adil Abood, Zainab Adil Ghani Chabuck, Zainab Hamood Alsaadi
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Abstract

Background:

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are considered acquired infections, with Proteus mirabilis ( P. mirabilis ) being a frequent pathogen that causes severe UTIs, especially in patients with anatomical or functional problems. The atpD gene is one of the most conserved genes in Proteus species that encodes for atp synthase β -subunit and its application for phylogenetic analysis of P. mirabilis isolates, and 16S rRNA gene sequences have been the most often utilized housekeeping genetic marker in the study of bacterial taxonomy and phylogeny.

Objective:

To compare atpD and 16S rRNA genes for diagnosis of clinical P. mirabilis isolates from UTI patients.

Materials and Methods:

Mid-stream urine samples were collected from patients suspected to get UTI, a total of 280 urine specimens, admitted to Al-Hilla Teaching Hospital from both sexes and with different ages during the period from May 2023 to October 2023, followed by cultivation and identification by morphological, biochemical tests, and Vitek2 system for an isolate. The boiling procedure is used in DNA extraction, followed by gene detection, sequencing, read followed by interpretation, and compared by BLAST similarity.

Results:

Results showed that 200/280 (71.43%) samples gave positive growth which was subdivided into 160/200 (80%) female and 40/200 (20%) male. The mean age of patients was 34.29 ± 13.27 with a range of 10–70 years. According to all these microscopic, phenotypic, and biochemical tests, results showed that out of the whole urine samples, 30/280 (10.7%) were positive for P. mirabilis , and only 25/280 isolates were confirmed to be P. mirabilis by VITEK system. 16S rRNA gene was detected in 25/25 (100%) of the isolates, while atpD was detected among only 16/25 isolates (64%). atpD gene amplicons with size 595 bp were subjected to nucleotides study, and detailed analysis revealed that atpD gene sequencing demonstrated an increase in nucleotides substitutions and differing phylogenetic histories.

Conclusion:

atpD failed to be a warranty for identification and confirmation of P. mirabilis isolates in comparison with 16S rRNA .

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