Abstract
We investigated antimicrobial resistance trends and characteristics of ESBL-producing Escherichia coli isolates from pets and whether this correlates with antibiotic usage in the clinic. Clinical samples containing E. coli from diseased cats and dogs were screened for antibiotic sensitivity and associated genotypic features. We identified 127 E. coli isolates from 1886 samples from dogs (n = 1565) and cats (n = 321) with the majority from urinary tract infections (n = 108, 85%). High rates of resistance were observed for β-lactams and fluoroquinolones and resistance to > 3 antibiotic classes (MDR) increased from 67% in 2012 to 75% in 2017 (P < 0.0001). This was especially true for strains resistant to 6–9 antibiotics that increased from 26.67 to 60.71%. Increased rates in β-lactam use for clinical treatment accompanied these increasing resistance rates. Accordingly, the most frequently encountered subtypes were blaCTX–M (n = 44, 34.65%), blaCTX–M–65 (n = 19) and blaCTX–M–15 (n = 18) and qnrB (n = 119, 93.70%). The blaCTX–M-isolates possessed 36 unique pulsed field electrophoretic types (PFGEs) and 28 different sequence types (STs) in ST405 (7, 15.9%), ST131 (3, 6.8%), ST73, ST101, ST372, and ST827 (2, 4.5% each) were the most prevalent. This data demonstrated a high level of diversity for the blaCTX–M-positive E. coli isolates. Additionally, blaNDM–5 was detected in three isolates (n = 3, 2.36%), comprised of two ST101 and one ST405 isolates, and mcr-1 was also observed in three colistin-resistant E. coli with three different STs (ST6316, ST405, and ST46). Our study demonstrates an increasing trend in MDR and ESBL-producing E. coli and this correlated with β-lactam antibiotic usage for treatment of these animals. This data indicates that there is significant risk for the spread of resistant bacteria from pets to humans and antibiotic use for pets should be more strictly regulated.
Highlights
Antimicrobial resistance has become one of the most challenging problems for public health and results in 700,000 deaths annually (O’Neill, 2016)
The increasing use of cephalosporin has been linked to Escherichia coli infections in pigs (Hammerum et al, 2014) and a high frequency of ESBL-producing E. coli was directly linked with a high consumption of third- or fourthcephalosporins (Andersen et al, 2015)
We identified an increase in E. coli Multidrug resistance (MDR) prevalence between 2012 and 2017 and increased rates of thirdgeneration cephalosporins and amoxicillin-clavulanic acid usage was accompanied by increased AMR and MDR rates
Summary
Antimicrobial resistance has become one of the most challenging problems for public health and results in 700,000 deaths annually (O’Neill, 2016). Antibiotic misuse has led to the spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in humans, food animals, pets, songbirds, water, and soil and even agricultural plants, and this represents a significant threat to public health security (Carter et al, 2018; Hartantyo et al, 2018; Anderson et al, 2019; Chen et al, 2019; Gros et al, 2019; Sanchez et al, 2019; Vikesland et al, 2019). ESBL are becoming more common because this phenotype is being selected for by the use and exposure to β-lactams, especially the cephalosporins. This has generated a vicious cycle of drug resistance and decreased therapeutic effects. The increasing use of cephalosporin has been linked to Escherichia coli infections in pigs (Hammerum et al, 2014) and a high frequency of ESBL-producing E. coli was directly linked with a high consumption of third- or fourthcephalosporins (Andersen et al, 2015)
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