Antimicrobial and Biocide Resistance among Feline and Canine Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus pseudintermedius Isolates from Diagnostic Submissions.

Andrea T Feßler,Christiane Weingart,Anne-Kathrin Schink,Antina Lübke-Becker,Barbara Kohn,Angela R Schug,Astrid Bethe,Anissa D Scholtzek,Stefan Schwarz

doi:10.3390/antibiotics11020127

Andrea T Feßler, Christiane Weingart + Show 7 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11020127

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Abstract

A total of 114 Staphylococcus isolates from various infections of companion animals, including 43 feline Staphylococcus aureus, 19 canine S. aureus, 11 feline Staphylococcus pseudintermedius and 41 canine S. pseudintermedius were investigated for (i) their susceptibility to 24 antimicrobial agents and three combinations of antimicrobial agents by broth microdilution following CLSI recommendations and (ii) the corresponding resistance genes. In addition, the isolates were tested for their susceptibility to the four biocides benzalkonium chloride, chlorhexidine, polyhexanide and octenidine by a recently developed biocide susceptibility testing protocol. Penicillin resistance via blaZ was the dominant resistance property in all four groups of isolates ranging between 76.7 and 90.9%. About one quarter of the isolates (25.4%) proved to be methicillin-resistant and carried the genes mecA or mecC. Macrolide resistance was the second most prevalent resistance property (27.2%) and all isolates harbored the resistance genes erm(A), erm(B), erm(C), erm(T) or msr(A), alone or in combinations. Fluoroquinolone resistance was detected in 21.1% of all isolates tested, whereas tetracycline resistance via tet(K) and/or tet(M) occurred in 19.3% of the isolates. Resistance to last resort antimicrobial agents in human medicine was seen only in single isolates, if at all. The minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of the four biocides showed unimodal distributions and were very similar for the four groups of staphylococci. Because of the large number of (multi)resistant isolates, antimicrobial susceptibility testing of feline and canine S. aureus and S. pseudintermedius isolates is highly recommended before the start of an antimicrobial chemotherapy. Moreover, no hints towards the development of biocide resistance were detected.

Highlights

Staphylococci, especially Staphylococcus (S.) aureus and S. pseudintermedius, are often involved in a wide range of infections among dogs and cats [1,2]
114 isolates, including 62 S. aureus (19 from infections of dogs and 43 from infections of cats) and 52 S. pseudintermedius (41 from infections of dogs and 11 from infections of cats), from diagnostic submissions to the Institute of Microbiology and Epizootics, Department of Veterinary Medicine, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany were included in this study
The results of this study showed that S. aureus and S. pseudintermedius play a role in a wide variety of infections of cats and dogs

Summary

Introduction

Staphylococci, especially Staphylococcus (S.) aureus and S. pseudintermedius, are often involved in a wide range of infections among dogs and cats [1,2]. Multiresistant canine and feline S. aureus and S. pseudintermedius isolates may pose a risk to human health [3,4,5] Companion animals, such as dogs and cats, which harbor these multiresistant staphylococci, often live in close contact to their owners and can transfer these pathogens via direct contact creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). As a consequence of the selection pressure imposed by the use of antimicrobial agents, staphylococci have developed and/or acquired resistances to virtually all classes of antimicrobial agents [9,10,11] This is true for the two staphylococcal species, S. aureus and S. pseudintermedius [9,12]. Two multicenter studies have confirmed this observation for MRSP isolates from dogs [17] and cats [18] obtained from clinical samples in European countries and North America In these studies, a wide range of antimicrobial resistance genes have been detected. Besides resistance genes commonly found in staphylococci, rarely detected antimicrobial resistance genes, such as the gene ileS2, which confers high-level mupirocin resistance, or the multiresistance gene cfr, which confers combined resistance to phenicols, lincosamides, oxazolidinones, pleuromutilins and streptogramin A, have been detected in S. aureus and/or S. pseudintermedius [24,25]

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