en Infectious disease (Molecular and Cellular aspects) Infectious disease (Molecular and Cellular aspects) Original Article Original Article <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12px;"><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><span style="line-height:14.0pt"><a name="_Hlk203223901"><span style="color:black">As a leading non-fermentative opportunistic bacterium, <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i> (<i>P. aeruginosa</i>) plays a major role in healthcare-associated infections<i>.</i> The emergence of carbapenem-resistant strains is a serious clinical threat, often associated with integrons and carbapenemases such as <i>bla</i>IMP. The present study aimed to assess the distribution of class 1 and 2 integrons and the <i>bla</i>IMP gene among clinical isolates of carbapenem-resistant <i>P. aeruginosa</i> from hospitals in Shiraz.</span></a></span><br> <span style="line-height:14.0pt"><span style="color:black">Seventy clinical isolates of <i>P. aeruginosa</i> were collected from different hospital wards. The identification of the isolates was performed using common microbiology methods. The disk diffusion method was used to evaluate the antimicrobial susceptibility. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values for imipenem in carbapenem-resistant strains were obtained using E-test strips. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to identify the resistance determinants including <i>intI</i>1, <i>intI</i>2, and <i>bla</i>IMP.</span></span><br> <span style="line-height:14.0pt"><span style="color:black">Of the 70 clinical isolates, 35 (50%) isolates were imipenem-resistant. MIC testing showed that 34 isolates had a resistant MIC (MIC &ge; 8 &mu;g/mL). PCR results showed that 33 (94.3%) isolates carried the <i>intI</i>1 gene and 17 (48.6%) isolates carried the <i>bla</i>IMP gene. Co-existence of <i>intI</i>1 and <i>bla</i>IMP genes was observed in 17 (48.6%) isolates. The <i>intI</i>2 gene was not detected in any of the samples. The prevalence of the <i>intI</i>1 and <i>bla</i>IMP genes was higher among the isolates obtained from intensive care units (ICU) and internal medicine wards.</span></span><br> <span style="line-height:14.0pt"><span style="color:black">The high prevalence of class 1 integrons and the <i>bla</i>IMP gene among carbapenem-resistant isolates suggests the key function of mobile genetic elements in the horizontal spread of resistance factors.</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="text-justify:kashida"><span style="text-kashida:0%"><span style="line-height:14.0pt"><span style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""><span style="color:black"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> Keywords: Integrons, Drug Resistance, Carbapenemase, Pseudomonas aeruginosa 886 889 http://ijmcmed.org/browse.php?a_code=A-10-8431-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Maryam Behboudipour behboudipour19_91@yahoo.com 100319475328460035475 0009-0005-8766-9368 No Department of Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran Neda Soleimani N_soleimani@sbu.ac.ir 100319475328460035476 100319475328460035476 Yes Department of Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran Negar Azarpira negarazarpira@gmail.com 100319475328460035477 100319475328460035477 No Transplant Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran Neda Soleimani Soleimani_n@sums.ac.ir 100319475328460035478 100319475328460035478 No Department of pathology, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran