Abdelraheem Wedad M, Yassin Hadeer Ibrahim, Zaki Shaimaa, Esmail Mona Abdel Monem
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Minia University, Minia, Egypt.
World J Microbiol Biotechnol. 2025 Apr 28;41(5):139. doi: 10.1007/s11274-025-04352-4.
Efflux pumps in Pseudomonas aeruginosa play an important role in decreasing the bacterium's antibiotic susceptibility. This study aimed to identify P. aeruginosa efflux pumps and examine the effect of Zinc sulfate on these pumps. This study was conducted on 104 P. aeruginosa clinical isolates collected from different types of specimens. The antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of all isolates was examined by disc diffusion and microdilution methods. A Cartwheel test was done for phenotypic detection of P. aeruginosa efflux pumps in the presence and absence of zinc sulfate. The expression of efflux pumps encoding genes and their regulators in the presence and absence of zinc sulfate was measured using real-time reverse transcriptase PCR. A high rate of multidrug-resistant (MDR) pattern was observed among the tested isolates (55.7%). Combining different antibiotics with Zinc sulfate exhibited synergistic effects against most of the studied isolates. The addition of sub-inhibitory concentrations of Zinc sulfate to the cartwheel test was found to inhibit efflux pump activity in all tested isolates. The expression of the positive regulator gene, mexT, was significantly decreased. Additionally, Zinc sulfate significantly upregulated the expression of the mexR gene (P-value < 0.05), a negative regulator of the MexAB-OprM efflux pump. Zinc sulfate demonstrated a strong antimicrobial effect against P. aeruginosa clinical isolates. We recommend the use of Zinc sulfate as an antibiotic adjuvant and efflux pump inhibitor in the treatment of P. aeruginosa infections to enhance the bacterium's susceptibility to antimicrobial agents.
铜绿假单胞菌中的外排泵在降低该细菌对抗生素的敏感性方面发挥着重要作用。本研究旨在鉴定铜绿假单胞菌外排泵，并研究硫酸锌对这些泵的影响。本研究对从不同类型标本中收集的104株铜绿假单胞菌临床分离株进行。通过纸片扩散法和微量稀释法检测所有分离株的抗菌药敏模式。在有和没有硫酸锌的情况下，进行车轮试验以表型检测铜绿假单胞菌外排泵。使用实时逆转录PCR测量在有和没有硫酸锌的情况下外排泵编码基因及其调节因子的表达。在测试的分离株中观察到高比例的多重耐药（MDR）模式（55.7%）。将不同抗生素与硫酸锌联合使用对大多数研究分离株表现出协同作用。发现在车轮试验中添加亚抑制浓度的硫酸锌可抑制所有测试分离株中的外排泵活性。阳性调节基因mexT的表达显著降低。此外，硫酸锌显著上调了MexAB-OprM外排泵的负调节因子mexR基因的表达（P值<0.05）。硫酸锌对铜绿假单胞菌临床分离株显示出强大的抗菌作用。我们建议在治疗铜绿假单胞菌感染时使用硫酸锌作为抗生素佐剂和外排泵抑制剂，以增强该细菌对抗菌药物的敏感性。
