Abstract
Antibiotic resistance poses an important threat to global public health and has become a challenge to modern medicine. The occurrence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in a broad range of foods has led to a growing concern about the impact that food may have as a reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes. Considering Minas Frescal Cheese (MFC)—a typical Brazilian white soft cheese—and its economic and cultural values, in this study, medically relevant antimicrobial-resistance genetic markers (AR genes) were screened, and the occurrence of integrons were evaluated in manufactured MFC using culture-independent approaches. Through a fingerprinting analysis, the tested MFCs were brand-clustered, indicating reproducibility along the production chain. A common core of resistance markers in all brands evaluated and related antimicrobials such as β-lactams, tetracyclines, quinolones, and sulfonamide was detected. Several other markers, including efflux pumps and aminoglycosides-resistance were distributed among brands. Class 1 and 2 integrons were observed, respectively, in 77% and 97% of the samples. The presence of AR genes is of special interest due to their clinical relevance. Taken together, the data may suggest that the production chain of MFC might contribute to the spread of putative drug-resistant bacteria, which could greatly impact human health. Furthermore, detection of class 1 and class 2 integrons in MFC has led to discussions about resistance gene spread in this traditional cheese, providing evidence of potential horizontal transfer of AR genes to human gut microbiota.
Highlights
As long as antimicrobial-resistant bacteria are being detected worldwide, associated to activities other than health-care and including food chain production, the phenomena will continue to pose a major threat to humans, animals, and environmental health and will become the focus of scientific investigation [1]
To contribute to aspects of clinical resistome and microbiological safety of manufactured Minas Frescal Cheese (MFC), this study aimed to perform a screening of clinically relevant antimicrobial-resistance genetic markers and evaluate the occurrence of integrons by culture-independent techniques based on direct analysis of total DNA from cheese samples
Repetitive extragenic palindromic sequences PCR was considered in this study as a culture-independent method, using the total DNA extracted from the cheese to compare the microbial community profile among samples from the same batch and to provide evidence of its reproducibility
Summary
As long as antimicrobial-resistant bacteria are being detected worldwide, associated to activities other than health-care and including food chain production, the phenomena will continue to pose a major threat to humans, animals, and environmental health and will become the focus of scientific investigation [1]. It is accepted that foodstuff may play an important role in the phenomena since ready to eat food may be cross contaminated with antimicrobial resistant bacteria during processing, becoming an important reservoir and raising questions about its safety [2,3,4,5]. Commensal bacteria found in the food may act as reservoirs for resistant genes which may potentially be transferred to gut microbiota and putative pathogens through horizontal gene transfer [7,8,9]
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