Coagulase-Positive Staphylococci Isolated from Chicken Meat: Pathogenic Potential and Vancomycin Resistance

Abstract

Coagulase-positive staphylococci (CPS) cause staphylococcal food poisoning. Recently, these bacteria have received increasing attention due to their potential role in the dissemination of antibiotic resistance markers. The present study aimed to evaluate coagulase-positive staphylococci counts, species distribution, enterotoxin genes prevalence, and the antibiotic resistance profile of CPS isolated from in natura chicken meat. Fifteen frozen and 15 chilled industrialized, uncooked chicken parts or entire carcasses were used. Staphylococcal counts revealed that frozen chicken meat samples displayed the lowest CPS count compared with chilled chicken meat samples (p<0.01). Staphylococcus aureus (62%) was the most common species, followed by S. intermedius, S. delphini, and S. schleiferi subsp. coagulans (10% each) and S. hyicus (8%). The polymerase chain reaction identification of sea, seb, sec, sed, and see genes revealed that 70% of the isolates harbored at least one enterotoxin gene, with sea and sed being the most frequently encountered ones. Two of the 50 investigated strains harbored three different enterotoxin genes. A high frequency of isolates resistant to penicillin, teicoplanin, oxacillin, and clindamycin was observed, and 80% of CPS were found to be resistant to at least one of the 11 tested antimicrobials. Vancomycin-resistant S. aureus and S. intermedius showed minimum inhibitory concentrations of 512 and 64 μg/mL, respectively. These isolates might indicate the dissemination of vancomycin resistance in the community and imply food safety hazards.

Antibiotic resistance and enterotoxin genes in Staphylococcus sp. isolates from polluted water in Southern Brazil

“…Staphylococcus are a genre of bacteria widespread in nature, being found in the air, soil, water, food products and animals, including human beings (Faria et al 2009, Hou et al 2012, Martins et al 2013. In this study the frequency to CNS species was higher than CPS, this result agrees with Serapicos (2008) and Faria et al (2009) who also demonstrated an elevated frequency of CNS in wastewater.…”

Prevalence and Antimicrobial Resistance Profile of Staphylococcus Species in Chicken and Beef Raw Meat in Egypt

“…Antimicrobial resistance was mainly against penicillin (94%), clindamycin (90%), and sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim (82%). Vancomycin-resistant S. aureus showed intermediate resistance (51%), which might indicate the dissemination of vancomycin resistance in the community and imply food-safety hazards (Martins et al, 2013). The percentage of resistance to b-lactams was variable, with the highest resistance being to penicillin (94%) and lowest to ampicillin-sulbactam (22%).…”

Molecular detection of antibiotic resistance genes in identified of Coagulase Negative Staphylococci from chickens flocks and hatcheries in Egypt.

“…Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) , including many species such as S. hyicus [3], S. gallinarum [4], S.xylosus and S. epidermidis [5,6], and commonly been isolated from the nares and skin of healthy chickens, and their taxonomic positions were discussed apart from the pathogenicities. CoNS had been isolated from frozen and chilled industrialized, uncooked chicken parts or entire carcasses [7] , raw chicken's meat [8,9] , meat product [10] , cooked chicken products [11] , breast, neck and wing of chickens [12] , chicken carcasses herd-wise pooled neck skin samples [13] as well as poultry bioaerosol [14] .…”