Drug resistance in Indian isolates of enteropathogenic <Emphasis Type="Italic">Escherichia coli</Emphasis>

Five different strains of enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) and one non-pathogenic strain of E. coli were studied for the determination of resistance to various antibiotics by disc inhibition test. Our results demonstrated multiple drug resistance among the selected E. coli isolates with all of them including the non-pathogenic control strain showing high resistance towards ampicillin. Our results from conjugation test clearly showed the presence of most of the antibiotic markers on the transferred plasmids. Simultaneously, the plasmid profile of conjugants also indicated the presence of more than one plasmid along with the expected megaplasmid of ~90 Kb present in them. Thus our results amply demonstrate that these drug markers are associated with these mobile plasmids.