Molecular characteristics and antibiotic resistance of Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus haemolyticus isolated from bovine mastitis

Abstract

Staphylococci are classified as one of the pathogens causing bovine mastitis that can pose not only an economic loss to the dairy farms, but a serious public-health threat based on their zoonotic potential.We focused to monitor phenotypes of the isolated strains of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Staphylococcus haemolyticus (S. haemolyticus) from milk of cows with clinical mastitis, including antibiotic resistance, biofilm forming ability and the presence of biofilm- and toxin- related genes.From a total of 191 milk samples were identified as S. aureus – 12% (22 isolates) and S. haemolyticus – 6% (12 isolates). Automatic interpreted reading of the antibiogram evaluated potentially 12 isolates as methicillin-resistant S. aureus and methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative Staphylococci. Genotypically, the isolates were positive for blaZ and negative for mecA and mecC. Others important mechanisms were inducible macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B (iMLSB) resistance with presence of msrA, ermC, vgaA.The most detected biofilm-associated and toxins genes were clfA, sdrD, sdrE, fnbpB, bbp, isdA, isdB, hla and see. S. aureus isolates were subjected to spa typing. It turned out that despite the strains coming from different farms, they were either resistant or sensitive to antibiotic, were all of the same spa-type t 10,035.Our findings revealed the presence iMLSB, which, to our best knowledge, were described in Slovakian bovine staphylococci rarely. The majority of isolates were multidrug-resistant and carried multiple virulence genes, posing a potential public-health risk.