Abstract
The use of antibiotics in farm management (growing crops and raising animals) has become a major area of concern. Its implications is the consequent emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and accordingly their access into the human food chain with passage of antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) to the normal human intestinal microbiota and hence to other pathogenic bacteria causative human disease. Therefore, we pursued in this study to unravel the frequency and the quinolone resistance determining region, mecA and cfr genes of methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA), methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative staphylococci (MRCNS) and methicillin-susceptible coagulase-negative staphylococci (MSCNS) isolated from the retail trade of ready-to-eat raw chicken meat samples collected during 1 year and sold across the Great Cairo area. The 50 Staphylococcus isolated from retail raw chicken meat were analyzed for their antibiotic resistance phenotypic profile on 12 antibiotics (penicillin, oxacillin, methicillin, ampicillin-sulbactam, erythromycin, tetracycline, clindamycin, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol, sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, and vancomycin) and their endorsement of the quinolone resistance determining region, mecA and cfr genes. The isolation results revealed 50 isolates, CPS (14) and CNS (36), representing ten species (S. aureus, S. hyicus, S. epidermedius, S. lugdunensis, S. haemolyticus, S. hominus, S. schleiferi, S. cohnii, S. intermedius, and S. lentus). Twenty seven isolates were methicillin-resistant. Out of the characterized 50 staphylococcal isolates, three were MRSA but only 2/3 carried the mecA gene. The ARG that bestows resistance to quinolones, β-lactams, macrolides, lincosamides, and streptogramin B [MLS(B)] in MRSA and MR-CNS were perceived. According to the available literature, the present investigation was a unique endeavor into the identification of the quinolone-resistance-determining-regions, the identification of MRSA and MR-CNS from retail chicken meat in Egypt. In addition, these isolates might indicate the promulgation of methicillin, oxacillin and vancomycin resistance in the community and imply food safety hazards.
Highlights
Health-conscious consumers have declined from consuming beef red meat which has been linked to heart disease, to choose leaner and easy digestible meats perceiving chicken, a white meat, to be a healthier option (Hathwar et al, 2012)
Other Staphylococcus species, collectively termed coagulase-negativestaphylococci (CNS), have gained importance as they have been implicated to be responsible for a variety of opportunistic infections in humans and animals (Vuong and Otto, 2002), their association with nosocomial infections in neonatal intensive care units and food poisoning in spite of the fact that, they are not classical food poisoning bacteria (Cortes et al, 2013; Becker et al, 2014; Tong et al, 2015) as they are less pathogenic than S. aureus possessing a smaller array of virulence factors (Becker et al, 2014)
The prevalence and diversity of the Staphylococcus species isolated from the chicken meat were found to be: out of the 100 chicken meat samples, 50 Staphylococcus species were isolated, which were further identified as, 14/50 CPS isolates differentiated into, S. aureus (n = 3), S. hyicus (n = 10), S. intermedius (n = 1); and 36/50 CNS isolates identified as S. epidermidis (n = 13), S. lugdunensis (n = 15), S. hemolyticus (n = 1), S. hominus (n = 3), S. lentus (n = 1), S. schleiferi (n = 2), and S. cohnii (n = 1)
Summary
Health-conscious consumers have declined from consuming beef red meat which has been linked to heart disease, to choose leaner and easy digestible meats perceiving chicken, a white meat, to be a healthier option (Hathwar et al, 2012). Specific data on the burden of foodborne disease associated with Staphylococcus in poultry meat has been previously limited (Capita et al, 2002; Pesavento et al, 2007; Persoons et al, 2009), yet it has gained importance in the last couple of years (Bhargava et al, 2011; Hanson et al, 2011; Boost et al, 2013; He et al, 2013; Martins et al, 2013; Momtaz et al, 2013; Yurdakul et al, 2013; Islam et al, 2014; Khallaf et al, 2014; Xin et al, 2014; Abdalrahman et al, 2015; Owuna et al, 2015; Pinto et al, 2015; Bortolaia et al, 2016; Teramoto et al, 2016), it is considered to be significant to be a disturbing issue in the poultry industry due to its impact on public health and a challenge to the medical and veterinary officials worldwide (APUA, 2010a; Ruban and Fairoze, 2011). Almost half of all the CNS species that have been identified to date have been implicated in human infections (Lowy, 2013) and a PubMed search on CNS results in more than 15,000 references, reflecting the increasing medical impact of these bacteria (Becker et al, 2014)
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