Abstract

The ability of Staphylococcus aureus to form biofilms is an important virulence factor because this has been associated with persistent bovine intramammary infections. Different mechanisms of biofilm formation have been described in S. aureus; however, the process has been found to be mainly driven by the ica and bap genes. The presence of the ica and bap genes, as well as the biofilm formation in vitro were evaluated in 229 S. aureus strains isolated from bovine milk collected from different regions of Department of Antioquia, Colombia. Three different genotypes grouped into three separate clusters were identified from in vitro assays. Genotype 1 (ica positive and bap negative) was the most prevalent (78.17%), followed by genotype 2 (ica and bap positive) (12.66%) and genotype 0 (ica and bap negative) (9.17%). Biofilm formation was observed in 81.26% of the strains from which 100% of genotype 2 isolates showed biofilm formation. The biofilms formed by genotype 2 isolates were also found to have the highest optical density (>2.4). These results showed that most of the S. aureus strains were capable of biofilm formation, suggesting the virulence potential particularly in bap-positive strains.

Highlights

  • S. aureus is one of the most common pathogens causing bovine intramammary infections (IMI), which are characterized by the presence of persistent microorganisms along with a poor response to antibiotic therapy

  • The biofilm formation ability of S. aureus is an important virulence factor associated with chronic IMI, which can be difficult to detect within herds (Cucarella et al, 2004; Gomes et al, 2016)

  • This is in agreement with the results presented by Cucarella et al (2004), who observed that 22.6% of infected cows were incorrectly classified as uninfected with the somatic cell count (SCC) criteria (

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Summary

Introduction

S. aureus is one of the most common pathogens causing bovine intramammary infections (IMI), which are characterized by the presence of persistent microorganisms along with a poor response to antibiotic therapy. Most clinical isolates that cause infections in both in humans and animals carry the ica locus; whereas the bap gene has only been found in strains isolated from cattle (Cucarella et al, 2004; Vautor et al, 2008). Some reports have indicated that bap-positive strains generally are strong biofilm formers, even in the absence of the ica locus, and can cause more persistent infections than bap-negatives (Cucarella et al, 2004; Lasa and Penades, 2006)

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