quorum sensing and genetic lineages in carbapenem-resistant <i>pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>

Carbapenem-resistant pseudomonas aeruginosa(crpa) has become a major global concern. quorum sensing (qs) regulates the expression of biofilm formation genes and virulence factors. enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus polymerase chain reaction (eric-pcr) is widely used in epidemiological molecular studies. objectives: the purpose of the present study was to determine the qs characteristics and genetic relatedness of crpa. methods: a total of 57 non-duplicative crpa isolates were collected. a microtiter plate assay was used to assess biofilm formation. after dna extraction, pcr was performed to detect resistance elements and qs-encoded genes. enterobacterial repetitive intergenic eric-pcr was conducted using specific primers. results: the biofilm formation assay revealed that 10.5%, 19.3%, and 70.2% of isolates formed weak, moderate, and strong biofilms, respectively. of the isolates, 75.4%, 64.9%, 12.3%, and 8.7% carried the blaimp, blavim, blandm, and blakpcgenes, respectively. additionally, 73.7%, 7.0%, and 1.7% of crpa isolates carried the blaoxa-48-like. blaoxa-23-like, and blaoxa-20/40-likegenes, respectively. the prevalence of the lasr, lasi, rhli, rhlr, aprr, apra, and rhlabgenes were 100%, 96.5%, 92.9%, 89.5%, 84.2%, 73.6%, and 63.2%, respectively. enterobacterial repetitive intergenic eric-pcr revealed eight distinct clusters (a, b, c, d, e, f, g, and h) using a similarity cut-off of ≥ 60%. conclusions: the findings indicate a high prevalence of strong biofilm formation and quorum-sensing genes among crpa isolates. the study highlights the importance of biofilm production and genetic diversity in crpa isolates, underscoring the challenges in infection control and treatment strategies.