Frequency of Staphylococcus pseudintermedius in Canine Skin Infections and Antibiotic Resistance Profiles of the Recovered Isolates

Abstract

In this study, 61 Staphylococcus pseudintermedius strains were isolated from 77 dogs with skin infections. Antimicrobial resistance to commonly used antibiotics was evaluated by disc diffusion method. The presence of the blaZ and mecA genes responsible respectively for penicillin and methicillin resistance were investigated by PCR. The S. pseudintermedius isolates were highly resistant to tetracycline (47.5%) and penicillin (40.9%) while all isolates were susceptible to amikacin (100%). All 18 methicillin-resistant S. pseudintermedius (MRSP) strains were positive for the mecA gene while the 25 S. pseudintermedius strain isolates with the blaZ gene were also resistant to penicillin phenotypically. Of the 18 MRSP isolates, 14 S. pseudintermedius strains were resistant to three or more antibiotics, indicating that these strains showed multiple drug resistance (MDR). This report confirms previous findings that S. pseudintermedius is the most frequently isolated bacteria from dog skin infections. It can also be concluded that amikacin is a useful agent for treating S. pseudintermedius infections since all the S. pseudintermedius strains tested in this study were susceptible to amikacin.