RESUMEN
We investigated the phenotypic and molecular characteristics of Extended-Spectrum-ß-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae clinical isolates from four health-care institutions in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. ESBL-producing isolates were collected from February to August 2016. The prevalence of ESBL-producing E. coli and K. pneumoniae was 11.9 and 8.7%, respectively. High dissemination of resistance to ciprofloxacin (88%), trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (72%) and aminoglycosides (59%) were detected, as well as susceptibility to meropenem, amikacin and tigecycline. The ESBL found variants were CTX-M-1 (88%) and CTX-M-9 (5%). The plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance (PMQR) gene aac(6´)-Ib-cr was identified in 62% of a representative sample, whereas the qnrB and qnrS genes were detected in 49% of the isolates. PFGE analyses detected many unrelated clones among the hospital or community isolates. A constant programme of epidemiological surveillance is recommended to understand the dynamics of bacterial resistance to both cephalosporin as well as the fluoroquinolone family of antibiotics.