Center for Veterinary Medicine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 8401 Muirkirk Road, Laurel, Maryland 20708.
Division of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Pennsylvania Department of Health, 7th and Forster Streets, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120.
J Food Prot. 2021 Oct 1;84(10):1749-1759. doi: 10.4315/JFP-21-005.
Little is known about the prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) bacteria in veal meat in the United States. We estimated the prevalence of bacterial contamination and AMR in various veal meats collected during the 2018 U.S. National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) survey of retail outlets in nine states and compared the prevalence with the frequency of AMR bacteria from other cattle sources sampled for NARMS. In addition, we identified genes associated with resistance to medically important antimicrobials and gleaned other genetic details about the resistant organisms. The prevalence of Campylobacter, Salmonella, Escherichia coli, and Enterococcus in veal meats collected from grocery stores in nine states was 0% (0 of 358), 0.6% (2 of 358), 21.1% (49 of 232), and 53.5% (121 of 226), respectively, with ground veal posing the highest risk for contamination. Both Salmonella isolates were resistant to at least one antimicrobial agent as were 65.3% (32 of 49) of E. coli and 73.6% (89 of 121) of Enterococcus isolates. Individual drug and multiple drug resistance levels were significantly higher (P < 0.05) in E. coli and Enterococcus from retail veal than in dairy cattle ceca and retail ground beef samples from 2018 NARMS data. Whole genome sequencing was conducted on select E. coli and Salmonella from veal. Cephalosporin resistance (blaCMY and blaCTX-M), macrolide resistance (mph), and plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance (qnr) genes and gyrA mutations were found. We also identified heavy metal resistance genes ter, ars, mer, fieF, and gol and disinfectant resistance genes qac and emrE. An stx1a-containing E. coli was also found. Sequence types were highly varied among the nine E. coli isolates that were sequenced. Several plasmid types were identified in E. coli and Salmonella, with the majority (9 of 11) of isolates containing IncF. This study illustrates that veal meat is a carrier of AMR bacteria.
美国有关牛肉中抗微生物药物耐药性（AMR）细菌流行率的信息较少。我们评估了美国 9 个州的零售网点 2018 年美国国家抗微生物药物耐药性监测系统（NARMS）调查期间采集的各种牛肉中细菌污染和 AMR 的流行率，并将其与 NARMS 中采样的其他牛源 AMR 细菌的频率进行了比较。此外，我们还鉴定了与重要医用抗菌药物耐药性相关的基因，并获取了耐药生物体的其他遗传细节。从美国 9 个州的杂货店采集的牛肉中未检测到弯曲杆菌、沙门氏菌、大肠杆菌和肠球菌，其流行率分别为 0%（358 份样本中 0 份）、0.6%（358 份样本中 2 份）、21.1%（232 份样本中 49 份）和 53.5%（226 份样本中 121 份），其中绞碎牛肉的污染风险最高。2 株沙门氏菌分离株均对至少一种抗菌药物具有耐药性，49 株大肠杆菌中有 65.3%（32 株）和 121 株肠球菌中有 73.6%（89 株）对至少一种抗菌药物具有耐药性。零售牛肉中的大肠杆菌和肠球菌的个别药物和多种药物耐药水平明显高于 2018 年 NARMS 数据中奶牛盲肠和零售碎牛肉样本（P<0.05）。对来自牛肉的选择大肠杆菌和沙门氏菌进行了全基因组测序。发现了头孢菌素耐药性（blaCMY 和 blaCTX-M）、大环内酯耐药性（mph）和质粒介导的喹诺酮耐药性（qnr）基因以及 gyrA 突变。我们还鉴定了重金属耐药基因 ter、ars、mer、fieF 和 gol 以及消毒剂耐药基因 qac 和 emrE。还发现了一株含有 stx1a 的大肠杆菌。测序的 9 株大肠杆菌中有 7 种不同的序列类型。在大肠杆菌和沙门氏菌中鉴定出了多种质粒类型，其中 9 株（11 株中的 9 株）含有 IncF。本研究表明，牛肉是 AMR 细菌的携带者。
