The aim of this study was to discriminate 30 Vibrio strains isolated from two wastewater treatment plants from Agadir, Morocco by two molecular typing methods, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). Out of the 30 strains of Vibrio examined in this study, 5 isolates could not be typed by PFGE and consistently appeared as a smear on the gel. In general, high genetic biodiversity among the Vibrio strains was found regardless to the isolation source. The results of MALDI TOF analysis show a high congruence of strain grouping demonstrating the accuracy and reliability of MALDI-TOF MS.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that remains an important public health problem at the global level. It is one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality, due to the emergence of antibiotic resistant Mycobacterium strains and HIV co-infection. Over the past decade, important progress has been made for better control of the disease. While microscopy and culture continue to be indispensible for laboratory diagnosis of tuberculosis, the range of several molecular diagnostic tests, including the nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) and whole-genome sequencing (WGS), have expanded tremendously. They are becoming more accessible not only for detection and identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex in clinical specimens, but now extend to diagnosing multi-drug resistant strains. Molecular diagnostic tests provide timely results useful for high-quality patient care, low contamination risk, and ease of performance and speed. This review focuses on the current diagnostic tests in use, including emerging technologies used for detection of tuberculosis in clinical specimens. The sensitivity and specificity of these tests have also been taken into consideration.

Background. In recent years, the treatment of tuberculosis has been threatened by the increasing number of patients with drug resistance, especially rifampicin resistance, which is the most effective first-line antibiotic against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Methods. We performed a systematic review of the literature by searching the PubMed database for studies of rifampicin-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) isolates from Moroccan patients, published between 2010 and 2020. The aim of this review was to quantify the frequency of the most common mutations associated with rifampicin resistance, to describe the frequency at which these mutations co-occur. Identified studies were critically appraised according to the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 (QUADAS-2) tool. Results. 6 studies met our inclusion criteria. Results show that 99.36% of MTB isolates had a single-point mutation, and the most commonly mutated codon of rpoB gene is 531 with 70.33% of phenotypically resistant strains. However, 10.38% of MTB strains phenotypically resistant to RIF did not exhibit any mutation in the rpoB gene. Conclusion. Identification of a resistance-associated mutation to rifampicin can be a good marker of drug-resistant TB, but lack of a mutation in the target sequence must be interpreted with caution.

A total of 21 isolates of Vibrio cholerae non-O1 strains were isolated from three wastewater treatment plants in Agadir, Morocco. The isolates were analyzed by biochemical analysis, antibiogram, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and the MALDI-TOF patterns of their protein masses were compared. Over 67% of isolates were susceptible to antimicrobial agents tested and 14% proved resistant to both trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole and nalidixic acid. Typing by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis with NotI digestion revealed that the V. cholerae non-O1 strains from Agadir (Morocco) have a lower level of genetic homogeneity, the restriction patterns of whole-chromosomal DNA grouped the V. cholerae O1 and V. alginolyticus strains into a separate cluster from V. metschnikovii and V. cholerae non-O1 isolates. Furthermore, to gain additional analytical accuracy and reliability in the analysis we used dendrogram based on MALDI-TOF spectral patterns generated by the BioTyper 1.1 TM software. All m/z signatures of all strains tested indicate that the mass spectral data contained sufficient information to distinguish between strains of V. cholerae.