Coexistence of Virulence and Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Pasteurella multocida Isolated from Diseased Rabbits

Abstract

Pasteurella multocida (P. multocida) is considered a predominant pathogenic bacterial agent causing respiratory manifestations (snuffles) in rabbits with considerable economic losses and unfavorable prognosis in Egypt. A few recent P. multocida strains exhibit resistance to the most commonly used antibiotics in the veterinary field. Therefore, the present study was carried out to investigate the prevalence of both virulence and antibiotic resistance genes among P. multocida isolated from diseased rabbits in Sharkia Governorate, Egypt. Only 10 out of 100 tested rabbits` nasal swabs were finally confirmed positive for P. multocida of serogroup A by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Antibiotic susceptibility testing of the recovered isolates revealed that they were all multidrug resistant (MDR) with a predominance of resistance to amoxicillin, ampicillin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, neomycin and tetracycline (100% each), followed by kanamycin and streptomycin (90% each). All the recovered isolates were further subjected to PCR screening of some common virulence and antibiotic resistance genes of interest. With the exception of toxA gene, the other virulence associated genes (ptfA, Omp87 and nanB) were found among all the examined isolates. Totally, all MDR P. multocida isolates contained at least one antibiotic resistance gene with aphA1 being the most prevalent (100%), followed by ermX gene (40%). Antibiotic resistance genotyping demonstrated the presence of multiple antibiotic resistance genes among majority of the isolates (40%) with only one isolate harboring 4 genes encoding identical resistance phenotypes. Evidentially, all MDR P. multocida isolates possessed at least 3 virulence genes accompanied by the attendance of antibiotic resistance genes. These findings evidenced that rabbits are potential sources of pathogenic P. multocida strains harboring virulence and antibiotic resistance genes. Therefore, it is evident that there is an urgent need for the judicious use of antibiotics in rabbits` treatment systems to successfully mitigate the propagation of drug resistance across P. multocida species.

Virulence Determinants and Antimicrobial Profiles of Pasteurella multocida Isolated from Cattle and Humans in Egypt

“…Records of bla CTX-M and bla CTX-M-1 in P. multocida isolates from cattle and humans, either healthy or diseased, are few in Egypt, so this may be the first report confirming the existence of these ESBL genes in P. multocida isolates from cattle and human sources in Egypt. However, the published results from Egypt by Awad et al [ 56 ] and Elalamy et al [ 57 ], confirmed the presence of bla ROB-1 in 20% of the P. multocida isolates from diseased rabbits and 8.3% from diseased chicken, respectively. TEM-1 is able to hydrolyze penicillin and the early cephalosporins; its existence in the P. multocida isolates of human origin was reported by Naas et al [ 58 ], and from cattle by Michael et al [ 54 ], who confirmed that the presence of TEM-1 in P. multocida is of veterinary importance.…”

Assessment of animal diseases caused by bacteria resistant to antimicrobials: rabbits

“…Overall, fairly low levels of resistance were reported in P. multocida isolates. For penicillins , one study from Egypt reported that all of 10 included isolates were resistant to both ampicillin (included as a surrogate for penicillin/amoxicillin, used only by the parenteral route in rabbits) and amoxicillin–clavulanic acid (Awad and Abd El‐Hamid, 2019 ). Another study from Brazil (Ferreira et al, 2012 ) found 10.9% and 6.5% of 45 isolates resistant to penicillin and amoxicillin, respectively, whereas a Chinese study found all 205 included isolates susceptible to penicillin (Wang et al, 2019 ).…”

Investigation of Genetic Diversity of Pasteurella multocida Isolated from Diseased Poultry in Korea

“…In addition, Tang et al (2009) provided the new epidemiological information on the prevalence and distribution of virulence factors of P. multocida isolates. Kim et al (2019), Awad & Abd El-Hamid (2019), and Aski & Tabatabaei (2016) found that the prevalence of some VAGs encoding adhesin factors (ptfA, fimA, hsf-1, hsf-2, pfhA, tadD), toxin (toxA), sialidase factors (nanB, nanH), and outer membrane proteins (ompA, ompH, oma87, plpB, psl) in P. multocida isolates from diseased swine, rabbits, poultry and other animals. We also investigated the presence of 23 virulence genes in 9 isolates in this study.…”