The First Report of -Carrying Originating from Animals in Serbia.

The aim of this study was continuous monitoring of the presence of to genes in isolated from cattle, pigs, and domestic poultry at intensive breeding facilities in Northern Vojvodina, Serbia, from 1 January 1 to 1 October 2020. Out of 2167 examined samples, was observed in five isolates originating from healthy turkeys. Four isolates belonged to the phylogenetic group B1, and one isolate to the phylogenetic group A. Detected serogenotypes (somatic O and flagellar H antigens) were O8:H25 and O29:H25. Core-genome multi-locus sequence typing (cgMLST) revealed three ST58 isolates clustering together in Clonal Complex (CC) 155 and two singletons of ST641-CC86 and ST410-CC23, respectively. Clonotyping revealed CH4-32 ( = 3), CH6-53 ( = 1) and CH4-24 ( = 1). In all isolates, the gene was located on a large IncX4 replicon type plasmid. Eight virulence-associated genes (VAGs) typical of avian pathogenic (APEC) (, , , , , , ) were detected in four isolates. These isolates were investigated for susceptibility to four biocides and revealed MIC values of 0.125% for glutardialdehyde, of 0.00003-0.00006% for chlorohexidine, of 4-6% for isopropanol and of 0.001-0.002% for benzalkonium chloride. All obtained MIC values of the tested biocides were comparable to the reference strain, with no indication of possible resistance. This is the first report of -carrying from Serbia. Although only samples from turkeys were -positive in this study, continuous monitoring of livestock samples is advised to prevent a spill-over from animals to humans.