Ground poultry is marketed as a healthier alternative to ground beef despite the fact that poultry is a major source of foodborne Salmonella. The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of Salmonella in Oklahoma retail ground poultry and to characterize representative isolates by serotyping, antimicrobial resistance, PFGE patterns, and large plasmid profiling. A total of 199 retail ground poultry samples (150 ground turkey and 49 ground chicken) were investigated. The overall prevalence of Salmonella in ground poultry was 41% (82/199), and the incidence in conventional samples (47%, 66/141) was higher than in organic samples (27%, 16/58). The prevalence of Salmonella in organic ground chicken and organic ground turkey was 33% (3/9) and 26% (13/49), respectively. Twenty six Salmonella isolates (19 conventional and 7 organic) were chosen for further characterization. The following six serotypes and number of isolates per serotype were identified as follows: Tennessee, 8; Saintpaul, 4; Senftenberg, 4; Anatum, 4 (one was Anatum_var._15+); Ouakam, 3; and Enteritidis, 3. Resistance to 16 tested antimicrobials was as follows: gentamycin, 100% (26/26); ceftiofur, 100% (26/26); amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, 96% (25/26); streptomycin, 92% (24/26); kanamycin, 88% (23/26); ampicillin, 85% (22/26); cephalothin, 81% (21/26); tetracycline, 35% (9/26); sulfisoxazole, 27% (7/26); nalidixic acid, 15% (4/26); and cefoxitin, 15% (4/26). All isolates were susceptible to amikacin, chloramphenicol, ceftriaxone, and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. All screened isolates were multidrug resistant (MDR) and showed resistance to 4–10 antimicrobials; isolates from organic sources showed resistance to 5–7 antimicrobials. PFGE was successful in clustering the Salmonella isolates into distinct clusters that each represented one serotype. PFGE was also used to investigate the presence of large plasmids using S1 nuclease digestion. A total of 8/26 (31%) Salmonella isolates contained a ∼100 Kb plasmid that was present in all Anatum and Ouakam isolates. In conclusion, the presence of multidrug resistant Salmonella with various serotypes, PFGE profiles, and large plasmids in ground poultry stresses the importance of seeking novel interventions to reduce the risk of this foodborne pathogen. Multidrug resistance (MDR) is considered a high additional risk and continued surveillance at the retail level could minimize the risk for the consumer.

The Great Salt Plains of Oklahoma (GSP) is an extreme region, a hypersaline environment from marine origin and a unique area of the Salt National Wild Refuge in the north-central region of Oklahoma. In this study we analyzed the diversity and distribution of bacteria in two habitats; vegetated areas (GAB) and salt flat areas (GAS) in the sediments of GSP using the high-throughput techniques of 16S rRNA gene amplicon (V1-V2 regions) metagenomics-454 pyrosequencing. The filtered sequences resulted to a total of 303,723 paired end reads were generated, assigned into 1646 numbers of OTUs and 56.4% G + C content for GAB, and a total of 144,496 paired end reads were generated, assigned into 785 numbers of OTUs and 56.7% G + C content for GAS. All the resulting 16S rRNA was of an average length ~ 187 bp, assigned to 37 bacterial phyla and candidate divisions. The abundant OTUs were affiliated with Proteobacteria (36.2% in GAB and 31.5% in GAS), Alphaproteobacteria (13.3% in GAB and 8.7% in GAS), Gammaproteobacteria (13% in GAB and 14.2% in GAS), Deltaproteobacteria (6.5% in GAB and 6.1% in GAS), Betaproteobacteria (2.6% in GAB and 1.14% in GAS), Bacteroidetes (16.8% in GAB and 24.3% in GAS), Chloroflexi (8.7% in GAB and 6% in GAS), Actinobacteria (8.5% in GAB and 5.8% in GAS) and Firmicutes (6.5% in GAB and 6.6% in GAS). This is the first study of a high resolution microbial phylogenetic profile of the GSP and the findings stipulate evidence of the bacterial heterogeneity that might be originated by surface and subsurface environments and better understanding of the ecosystem dynamics of GSP. Metagenome sequence data are available at NCBI with accession numbers; LT699840-LT700186.

In the past decades, novel pharmaceutical compounds have been produced by a wide diverse groups of marine bacteria. These marine bacteria are potential reservoirs for antimicrobial products. In this study, we investigated 40 soil samples collected from the Great Salt Plain of Oklahoma GSP for anti-methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus bioactivities. A total number of 499 heterotrophic bacterial isolates (202 mesophilic halotolerant isolates, 125 thermophilic isolates, 84 halophilic isolates and 88 thermophile-halophile isolates) were recovered by culture dependent isolation and subjected to high-throughput screening to investigate their bioactivities against two strains of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus MRSA. A total of 101 isolates (20.2%) out of 499 isolates possessed bioactivities against MRSA strains. They included; eighty (40%) isolates out of the 202 mesophilic halotolerant isolates showed anti-MRSA bioactivity. Twenty one bioactive (7%) isolates out of the 297 enrichment isolates showed anti-MRSA bioactivity. They involved; eleven bioactive (11%) isolates out of 125 of the thermophilic group and ten bioactive isolates (10%) out of 84 halophilic group isolates. No anti-MRSA bioactivity was revealed by the 88 isolates of the thermophile-halophile group. These 101 bioactive isolates (80 mesophilic halotolerant, 11 thermophilic and 10 halophilic) exhibited bioactivities against at least one Staphylococcus aureus MRSA using well diffusion technique. In regard to biogeographical distribution, a total of 29 (29%) and 72 (71%) bioactive isolates were isolated from vegetation and salt flat areas respectively. Thirty four (34%) isolates showed bioactivity against both methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains and fourteen (14%) isolates showed antimicrobial bioactivity against Staphylococcus aureus B-8-41-D-4, whereas fifty two (52%) isolates revealed antagonism against Staphylococcus aureus 4656. Furthermore, 16S rRNA-based study exposed that, Firmicutes harbored the highest number of bioactive isolates 77 (77%) including Bacillus (n=45 isolates), Halobacillus (n=13 isolates), Virgibacillus (n=7 isolates), Brevibacillus (n=7 isolates), Paenibacillus (n=1 isolates), Sediminibacillus (n=2 isolates), Oceanobacillus (n=1 isolates) and Staphylococcus (n=1 isolate). Proteobacteria- Gammaproteobacteria contained seven bioactive isolates (7%), including Halomonas (n=5 isolates), Marinobacter (n=1 isolate) and Pseudomonas (n=1 isolate). Actinobacteria were the third group and contained two bioactive isolates (2%), including, Cellulomonas (n=1 isolate) and Micrococcus (n=1 isolates). To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the anti- methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus bioactivities of bacteria isolated from GSP. We consider our findings promising for further research to develop novel antimicrobial antibiotics.