Department of Technology and Biotechnology, Instituto de Productos Lácteos de Asturias (IPLA-CSIC), Asturias, Spain.
DairySafe Group. Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Principado de Asturias (ISPA), Oviedo, Spain.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2024 Jan 29;14:1327131. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2024.1327131. eCollection 2024.
Infections by the pathogen currently represent one of the most serious threats to human health worldwide, especially due to the production of enterotoxins and the ability to form biofilms. These structures and the acquisition of antibiotic resistance limit the action of antibiotics and disinfectants used to combat this microorganism in the industry and the clinic.
This work reports a comparative phenotypic and genotypic study of 18 strains from different origins: clinical samples, milk from mastitic cows and food industry surfaces, most of which were isolated in Northern Spain.
Genetically, the strains were very diverse but, in most cases, a closer proximity was observed for those from the same source. Notably, the average number of virulence genes was not significantly different in strains from the food sector. Of the 18 strains, 10 coded for at least one enterotoxin, and four of them carried 6 or 7 enterotoxin genes. The latter were all veterinary or clinical isolates. Most strains carried prophages, plasmids and/or pathogenicity islands. Regarding antibiotic resistance, although phenotypically all strains showed resistance to at least one antibiotic, resistance genes were only identified in 44.5% of strains, being mastitis isolates those with the lowest prevalence. Virulence-related phenotypic properties such as haemolytic activity, staphyloxanthin production, biofilm-forming capacity and spreading ability were widely distributed amongst the isolates.
Our results indicate that production of virulence factors, antibiotic resistance and biofilm formation can be found in isolates from diverse environments, including the food industry, although some of these traits are more prevalent in strains isolated from infections in cows or humans. This emphasizes on the importance of monitoring the spread of these determinants not only in samples from the clinical environment, but also along the food chain, a strategy that falls under the prism of a one-health approach.
目前，病原体感染是对全球人类健康的最严重威胁之一，尤其是由于其产生肠毒素和形成生物膜的能力。这些结构和获得抗生素耐药性限制了用于对抗该微生物的抗生素和消毒剂在工业和临床中的作用。
本工作报告了对来自不同来源的 18 株菌的表型和基因型的比较研究：临床样本、乳腺炎奶牛的牛奶和食品工业表面，其中大多数分离自西班牙北部。
从遗传上看，这些菌株非常多样化，但在大多数情况下，同一来源的菌株更为接近。值得注意的是，食品部门菌株的毒力基因数量没有显著差异。在 18 株菌中，有 10 株至少编码一种肠毒素，其中 4 株携带 6 或 7 种肠毒素基因。后者均为兽医或临床分离株。大多数菌株携带噬菌体、质粒和/或致病性岛。关于抗生素耐药性，尽管所有菌株在表型上均表现出至少对一种抗生素的耐药性，但仅在 44.5%的菌株中鉴定出耐药基因，乳腺炎分离株的耐药率最低。与毒力相关的表型特性，如溶血活性、金黄色素产生、生物膜形成能力和扩散能力，在分离株中广泛分布。
我们的结果表明，在包括食品工业在内的不同环境中分离的菌株中，可以发现产生毒力因子、抗生素耐药性和生物膜形成，尽管这些特征在从奶牛或人类感染中分离的菌株中更为普遍。这强调了不仅在临床环境的样本中，而且在食物链中监测这些决定因素的传播的重要性，这是一种基于一个健康方法的策略。
