Isolation and molecular characterization of multidrug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae strains from pork and...

This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence and molecular characterization of multidrug-resistant (MDR) Enterobacteriaceae isolated from swine meat and the breeding environment. A total of 102 MDR Enterobacteriaceae strains belonging to five genera were obtained from 210 samples collected from a large-scale swine farm from March 2012 to June 2013 in Xiamen, People's Republic of China. Among these MDR isolates, Escherichia coli strains were found most frequently in both meat and environmental samples, followed by Citrobacter spp., Klebsiella spp., and Shigella spp. The neighbor-joining phylogenetic tree indicated that 70.3 % of Escherichia and 50 % of Citrobacter isolates from meat samples shared 100 % homology with relevant isolates from environmental samples. Resistance was most frequently observed to sulfonamide, trimethoprim, aminoglycoside, chloramphenicol, β-lactam, and tetracycline. Close correlation was noted between antibiotic resistance phenotype and the genes responsible for resistance to sulfonamide (sulI), trimethoprim (dhfrI), aminoglycoside (aadA, aac(3)-I, aphA-1, and aac(3)-IV), chloramphenicol (catI and cmlA), β-lactam (blaSHV, blaOXA, and blaTEM), florfenicol (floR), and tetracycline (tet(A) and tet(B)), which were widely distributed with prevalences of 72.5, 6.9, 62.7, 14.7, 78.4, 11.8, 25.5, 42.2, 12.7, 14.7, 39.2, 87.2, 68.6, and 34.3 % , respectively. Class 1 integrons carrying aadA22, dfrA17-aadA5, or dfrA12-aadA2 cassette arrays were commonly found in isolates from all samples. The gene cassette aac(6')-Ib-cr-arr-3-dfrA27-aadA16 was first found in an Enterobacter amnigenus isolate. Conjugation experiments revealed the plasmid-mediated transfer of class 1 integrons. Our results indicate that swine meat and the farming environment can be sources of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which could be potentially transmitted to humans via the meat products industry chain.