Mobile resistance determinants, plasmid replicon types and phylogeny among Escherichia coli strains isolated from cats and dogsom cats and dogs

Abstract

Multidrug resistance is a great challenge for the treatment of infectious diseases. We determined an-tibiotic resistance patterns, integrons, plasmid-mediated ESBL-, AmpC beta-lactamase-, carbapenemase-, colistin re-sistance genes, plasmid replicon types and phylogeny of fecal Escherichia coli strains isolated from domestic cats and dogs in Turkey. A total of 104 fecal samples of healthy 49 cats and 55 dogs were examined. The integrons, plasmid-mediated resis-tance genes, plasmid replicon types and phylogroups were determined by PCR. Antimicrobial susceptibilities were performed by disc diffusion and microdilution methods. Escherichia coli strains were mostly resistant to AMP (56.73%), SXT (39.42%), CTX (38.46%) and CIP (30.77%). Colistin resistance was not detected. ESBL and carbapenemase rates were 35.5 % and 7.69%, respectively. Eighty (76.9%) and 49 (47.1%) strains were harboring class I and class II integrons, respectively. Besides 12 strains were shown to possess class III integrons. The most frequently detected genes were blaCTX-M (48.08%), blaTEM(45.19%) and blaVIM(20.19%). In our study, none of strains were positive for mcr-1 and mcr-2 genes. Integrons were mostly found on plasmids of incompatibility groups IncF (71.25%) and strains bearing blaCTX-M and blaTEM carried a wide range of plasmid replicons of which IncF, IncFIB, IncK, and IncN. The majority of the strains were grouped in B2 (31.73%) and B1 (22.12%) and resistant bacteria mostly belonged to phylogroup B2. We showed an increasing trend in ESBL-producing E. coli among fecal microbiota members. E. coli strains with dif-ferent plasmid replicon types and phylogroups isolated from cats and dogs can be resistant to various antibiotics which are used in human and veterinary medicine.