Vet World   Vol.11   June-2018  Article-20

Molecular characterization and antibiotic resistance patterns of avian fecal Escherichia coli from turkeys, geese, and ducks

Background and Aim: Avian fecal Escherichia coli (AFEC) are considered to be the natural reservoir of pathogenic strains in extraintestinal infections as such characterization of AFEC gives insight into the spread of the potential pathogenic lineage. The aim of the study was to investigate the reservoirs of avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC) from fecal samples of healthy ducks, geese, and turkeys by determining the antibiotic resistance patterns of AFEC isolates from turkeys, geese and ducks and characterization of the isolates using virulence genes, plasmid profiles, and phylogenetic grouping.

Materials and Methods: The disc diffusion method was used to determine antibiotic resistance of 100 AFEC isolates from turkeys (9), geese (29), and ducks (62) to 8 antibiotics. Molecular characterization of the isolates was done by multiplex polymerase chain reaction to investigate the presence of 12 virulence genes, plasmid profiling, and phylogenetic grouping based on the 16S rRNA sequences.

Results: Antibiogram profiles indicated maximum resistance to cloxacillin (100%) and bacitracin (100%) for all AFEC isolates and high sensitivity to ciprofloxacin; however, all isolates exhibited multi-drug resistance. The AFEC isolates from turkeys (6) and geese (12) did not contain virulence genes. The frz (3.7%), sitD (29.6%), and fimH (92.5%) were detected in the duck isolates. None of the isolates had the KpsM, iutA, vat, sitA, hlyF, pstB, ompT, uvrY, and sopB genes. Plasmid profiling gave four plasmid profiles with the plasmids ranging from 1.5 to 55 kb. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA sequences revealed similarities between AFEC isolates from the different poultry species, as the isolates did not cluster according to avian species.

Conclusion: AFEC isolates are potential reservoirs of APEC as they contain some of the virulence genes associated with APEC. Multidrug resistance is high in AFEC isolated from healthy birds. This is a public health concern. Keywords: antibiotic resistance, avian fecal Escherichia coli, poultry, virulence gene.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance, avian fecal Escherichia coli, poultry, virulence gene.

How to cite this article: Dube N, Mbanga J (2018) Molecular characterization and antibiotic resistance patterns of avian fecal Escherichia coli from turkeys, geese, and ducks, Veterinary World, 11(6): 859-867.

Received: 30-07-2017  Accepted: 11-05-2018     Published online: 27-06-2018

Corresponding author: Nokukhanya Dube   E-mail: khanyaxp@gmail.com

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2018.859-867

Copyright: Dube and Mbanga, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.