Antibiotic Resistance and Plasmid Profiling of Clinically Significant Vibrio vulnificus Isolated from Coastal Water in Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia

Vibrio vulnificus is an estuarine bacterium that is capable of causing a rapidly fatal infection in humans. The aim of this study to investigate the occurrence, antibiotic resistance and plasmid profiles of V. vulnificus in Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia coastal water. A total of 10 isolates of V. vulnificus isolated from coastal water of Arabian Gulf in Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. All isolates showed a multiple resistance towards all 10 antibiotics tested. Some of the isolates showed a high resistance to different antibiotics including gentamicin, ticarcillin, cefaclor, amikacin, augmentin and ampicillin. However, all isolates of V. vulnificus was susceptible to tetracycline and ampicillin. Overall antibiotics resistance patterns of all isolates were resistant from 2 to 3 patterns with Multiple Antibiotic Resistance (MAR) index ranging from 0.2 to 0.5 respectively. 4 out of 10 isolates of V. vulnificus harbored plasmid DNA with size ranging from 3.7 to 4.9 kb. These findings are very important because of the involvement of seawater in transmission of this pathogen to human. V. vulnificus is responsible of causing severe wound infection and is often characterized by necrotizing skin and soft-tissue infection, primary sepsis in certain high-risk populations, including patients with chronic liver disease, immunodeficiency, iron storage disorders, end-stage renal disease and diabetes mellitus.