Antibiotic resistance pattern of the allochthonous bacteria isolated from commercially available spices.

Spices are often used in dried form, sometimes with significant microbial contamination including pathogenic and food spoilage bacteria. The antibiotic resistance represents an additional risk for food industry, and it is worthy of special attention as spices are important food additives. During our work, we examined the microbiological quality of 50 different spices with cultivation methods on diverse selective media. The identification of the most representative bacteria was carried out using 16S rDNA gene sequence analysis. Antibiotic resistance profiling of twelve identified species ( BCFK, BCLS, SZBC, BCTA, SALKÖ, CVBC, SALÖB isolate, KOPS, BMBC, PRBC2, BMPS, and BCFK2 isolate) was performed using the standard disk-diffusion method against 32 antibiotics. The study showed that the majority resistance was obtained against penicillin G (100%), oxacillin (91.67%), amoxyclav (91.67%), rifampicin (75%), and azithromycin (75%). Our findings suggest that spices harbor multidrug-resistant bacteria.