Genetic diversity, virulence profiles, and antimicrobial resistance of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi isolated from typhoid fever patients in Baghdad, Iraq

Typhoid fever is an important health issue in developing countries, and the pathogenicity of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. ser. Typhi) depends on the presence of different virulence factors. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the spread of virulence genes among S. Typhi isolates from patients with typhoid fever in Baghdad, Iraq. Sixty S. Typhi isolates were collected from several hospitals in Baghdad and identified using VITEK-II and confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect the 16S rRNA gene. After testing their susceptibility to different antimicrobials (via the disk diffusion method), we found the highest resistance rates (100 %) were to ampicillin, piperacillin, cefotaxime, and ceftriaxone. The highest sensitivity rates (100 %) were to ertapenem, imipenem, meropenem, and sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim. The presence of genes encoding for virulence in S. Typhi isolates was tested by conventional PCR. The results showed that out of 60 isolates, 59 (98.3 %), 59 (98.3 %), 58 (96.7 %), and 60 (100 %) were positive for viaB, staA, cdtB, and orfL genes, respectively. The sequencing of PCR products (viaB, staA, cdtB, and orfL genes) was carried out at the Macrogen Company (Seoul, Korea). The sequences were compared with nucleotide sequences in the BLAST GenBank database, and data obtained from the sequencing of these virulence genes were submitted to GenBank under different accession numbers. A phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence found a high similarity between local sequences and the closely related sequences of genes in GenBank. The presence of the viaB, staA, cdtB, and orfL virulence genes in nearly all of the isolates under examination suggests that they play an important role in the pathogenicity of local isolates.