Genome profiling of Uropathogenic E.coli from community acquired UTI in paediatric patients.

Urinary tract infection in children is a common bacterial infection. Our aim was to genotypically characterize the E.coli isolates recovered from the children with UTI for their resistance profile, circulating sequence types and the genetic profile harbouring resistance genes. Children 2-18 years from different community health centres of India with symptoms of UTI were enrolled from the year 2020-2022. Nineteen E.coli isolates-15 ESBL positive and 4 ESBL negative were sequenced. Eleven per cent 73/658 of children were included in the study with male and female ratio of 1:1. E.coli was the predominant uropathogen- Eighty Six percent followedby K. pneumoniae-Eleven percent. The susceptibility of E.coli was recorded highest against Fosfomycin-Hundred percent followed by Nitrofurantoin-Twelve percent and carbapenems-Nine percent. Genomic analysis of E. coli isolates showed sequence type 131 as the predominant with the presence of plasmid mobile elements and composite transposon in many isolates. This study results showed horizontal transmission of resistant genes with high-risk clones such as blaNDM-5 and blaCTX-M-15.