Simeoni Desj, Rizzotti Lucia, Cocconcelli Piersandro, Gazzola Simona, Dellaglio Franco, Torriani Sandra
Dipartimento Scientifico e Tecnologico, Università degli Studi di Verona, Strada le Grazie 15, 37134 Verona, Italy.
Food Microbiol. 2008 Feb;25(1):196-201. doi: 10.1016/j.fm.2007.09.004. Epub 2007 Sep 15.
Staphylococci harbouring antibiotic resistance (AR) genes may represent a hazard for human health and, as other resistant food-related bacteria, they contribute to the spread of AR. In this study, we isolated resistant staphylococci from an entire swine production chain and investigated the occurrence of 11 genes [aac(6')Ie-aph(2'')Ia, blaZ, mecA, vanA, vanB, ermA, ermB, ermC, tet(M), tet(O) and tet(K)] encoding resistance to some antibiotics largely used in clinical practice. The 66 resistant staphylococcal isolates were identified as Staphylococcus epidermidis (27 isolates), Staphylococcus aureus (12), Staphylococcus xylosus (12), Staphylococcus simulans (5), Staphylococcus pasteuri (4), Staphylococcus carnosus (3), Staphylococcus lentus (2) and Staphylococcus sciuri (1). Specific-PCR detection of AR genes showed the prevalence of the tet(K) gene in most of the isolates (89.4%), followed by tet(M) and ermC (about 75%); mecA was detected in more than half of S. aureus and S. epidermidis isolates. The genes vanA and vanB were not retrieved. It was found that a high proportion of coagulase-positive and -negative isolates are multidrug-resistant and some of them carry up to six AR genes. Our findings show that the swine production chain is a source of antibiotic-resistant staphylococci suggesting the importance of resistance surveillance in the food production environment.
携带抗生素抗性（AR）基因的葡萄球菌可能对人类健康构成危害，并且与其他与食物相关的抗性细菌一样，它们会促使AR传播。在本研究中，我们从整个生猪生产链中分离出抗性葡萄球菌，并调查了11种基因[aac(6')Ie-aph(2'')Ia、blaZ、mecA、vanA、vanB、ermA、ermB、ermC、tet(M)、tet(O)和tet(K)]的存在情况，这些基因编码对临床实践中大量使用的某些抗生素的抗性。66株抗性葡萄球菌分离株被鉴定为表皮葡萄球菌（27株）、金黄色葡萄球菌（12株）、木糖葡萄球菌（12株）、模仿葡萄球菌（5株）、巴斯德葡萄球菌（4株）、肉葡萄球菌（3株）、缓慢葡萄球菌（2株）和松鼠葡萄球菌（1株）。AR基因的特异性PCR检测显示，大多数分离株（89.4%）中tet(K)基因流行，其次是tet(M)和ermC（约75%）；mecA在超过一半的金黄色葡萄球菌和表皮葡萄球菌分离株中被检测到。未检测到vanA和vanB基因。发现高比例的凝固酶阳性和阴性分离株具有多重耐药性，其中一些携带多达6种AR基因。我们的研究结果表明，生猪生产链是抗生素抗性葡萄球菌的一个来源，这表明在食品生产环境中进行抗性监测的重要性。
