Abstract
Morganella morganii, a non-negligent opportunistic pathogen of the family Enterobacteriaceae, enlisted recently in the global priority pathogens by WHO for its swift propensity to acquire drug-resistant genes, engendering enhanced death rates. A combination of diverse antimicrobials could be recycled to overcome the ongoing acquisition of resistance mechanisms by M. morganii. Herein, we investigated the in vitro synergistic effect of colistin with meropenem, rifampicin, minocycline and linezolid against three intrinsic colistin-resistant M. morganii strains collected from critical departments of tertiary care hospitals. The strains were identified and tested for antimicrobial susceptibility by VITEK 2 automated system. The 16S rRNA sequencing was used to reconfirm the species identification. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of colistin, meropenem, rifampicin, minocycline and linezolid were determined by the broth microdilution method. Synergistic interactions were studied by checkerboard and time-kill assay. The VITEK 2 identification and 16S rRNA sequencing confirmed that the strains were M. morganii. The automated antimicrobial susceptibility test revealed that all three isolates were multi-drug resistant. The checkerboard analysis demonstrated the synergy of all four combinations with FICI values ranging from 0.06 to 0.31 in all three isolates. These results suggest a potential role of meropenem as an adjuvant for treating M. morganii infections. The current work presented the first evidence of synergy between colistin and other antibiotics against M. morganii infection, which needs validation through in vitro and in vivo studies using a larger number of isolates.
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Acknowledgements
We sincerely thank the President, Siksha 'O' Anushandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, India, for providing the infrastructure and financial support to carry out our research work.
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Conceptualization: DUB, SD and ES; Formal analysis: DUB, KR, MG and SS; Investigation: DUB, KR; Methodology: ES and SD; Project administration: ES; Resources: BR and MR; Supervision: ES and RKS; Writing—original draft: DUB, SD, KR and ES; Writing—review and editing: SD, MG, KR, RKS and ES. All authors critically revised the document and agreed on its content.
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Behera, D.U., Ratnajothy, K., Dey, S. et al. In vitro synergistic interaction of colistin and other antimicrobials against intrinsic colistin-resistant Morganella morganii isolates. 3 Biotech 13, 127 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-023-03551-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-023-03551-w