Vet World   Vol.14   July-2021  Article-12

Vancomycin resistant Streptococcus equi subsp. equi isolated from equines suffering from respiratory manifestation in Egypt

Background and Aim: Upper respiratory tract infections are common in horses and can be caused by a variety of pathogens, mainly Streptococcus equi subsp. equi, which are a significant equine pathogen causing major health issues as well as financial losses to the equine industry. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of Streptococcal bacteria in equines in Egypt, and characterize vancomycin-resistant S. equi subsp. equi phenotypically and genotypically.

Materials and Methods: S. equi subsp. equi was isolated from internal nares of horses. All strains were confirmed by polymerase chain reaction-based detection of Streptococcus genus-specific 16S rRNA, sodA and seeI genes. Antibiotic susceptibility was determined phenotypically using the disk diffusion method. Genotypic detection of antibiotic resistance genes was performed by analyzing as β-lactamase resistance (blaZ), tetracycline resistance (tetK), vancomycin resistance (vanA), and chloramphenicol resistance (fexA).

Results: Eight streptococcal isolates were confirmed as S. equi subsp. equi. The genotypic characterization of antibiotic resistance showed resistance to vanA and tetK, with a frequency of 87.5% and 12.5%, respectively, while the frequency of sensitivity was 100% for blaz gene and fexA gene.

Conclusion: In this study, we assessed vancomycin-resistant S. equi subsp. equi from equines suffering from respiratory manifestation in Egypt. Keywords: antibiotic resistance, equines, polymerase chain reaction, Streptococcus equi subsp. Equi, vancomycin.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance, equines, polymerase chain reaction, Streptococcus equi subsp. Equi, vancomycin.

How to cite this article: Arafa AA, Hedia RH, Ata NS, Ibrahim ES (2021) Vancomycin resistant Streptococcus equi subsp. equi isolated from equines suffering from respiratory manifestation in Egypt, Veterinary World, 14(7): 1808-1814.

Received: 12-03-2021  Accepted: 02-06-2021     Published online: 14-07-2021

Corresponding author: Amany A. Arafa   E-mail: dr.amanyahmed@yahoo.com

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2021.1808-1814

Copyright: Arafa, 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.