Abstract

In Saudi Arabia, water resources are largely limited to groundwater, which is used both for drinking and agriculture. There is no surface water except for a few oases and no permanent streams. The contamination of this source possibly through wastewater, agriculture activities and wild birds as well as amphibians and reptiles that have access to wells and springs. Twenty six strains of Escherichia coli, isolated from water springs inAl-Ahsa Region of Saudi Arabia were analyzed for their antimicrobial susceptibility. Fifteen strains, representing 57.74% of the total twenty six strains, showed multidrug resistance phenotypes. RAPD-PCR with two random primers produced different DNA fingerprinting profiles with varied number of bands. The dendrogram obtained from the RAPD-PCR results discriminated the isolates into 26 single isolates and 3 clusters at the level of 40% similarity.

Key words: Escherichia coli, antibiotic resistance, water springs, RAPD-PCR.