Occurrence of Staphylococcus spp. in the wastewaters from Iran: Diversity, antimicrobial resistance, and virulence potential

Abstract

The prevalence, antibiotic resistance, and virulence characteristics of Staphylococci from hospitals, livestock, municipals, and poultry wastewaters were investigated in Ardabil, Iran. From 155 staphylococcal isolates, 44.5% were coagulase-positive Staphylococci (CoPS) and 55.5% were coagulase-negative Staphylococci (CoNS) spp. Both CoPS and CoNS species were mainly found in hospital and poultry wastewater samples. The most prominent CoPS and CoNS species were Staphylococcus aureus at 80% and Staphylococcus xylosus at 37%. Methicillin resistance was found in 2% of S. aureus isolates. Overall, 49.2% of CoPS and 47.6% of CoNS isolates exhibited multidrug resistance phenotypes. CoPS were the most resistant to penicillin (89%) and erythromycin (62%) and CoNS isolates exhibited the highest resistance to erythromycin (55%) and tetracycline (49%). Inducible clindamycin resistance was detected in 11% of aureus isolates. The ermC and aac genes were detected as the most common macrolide–lincosamide–streptogramin B (MLSB)and aminoglycoside-resistance encoding genes in 82.5 and 22.5% of S. aureus isolates, respectively. Most of the S. aureus isolates were positive for multiple virulence factors. The methicillin-resistant S. aureus isolates belonged to SCCmec type V. A new spa type t19215 was also identified. The occurrence of multidrug-resistant S. aureus with diverse genetic resistance and virulence background in wastewater is of great health concern.

Multidrug-Resistant Staphylococcus sp. and Enterococcus sp. in Municipal and Hospital Wastewater: A Longitudinal Study

“…Of the 13 staphylococcal species detected in this study, 8 were the majority (S. cohnii, S. aureus, S. sciuri, S. xylosus, S. saprophyticus, S. epidermidis, S. hominis, and S. haemolyticus) (Figure 3). The presence of these species has also been reported in wastewater analyzed from hospital or community WWTPs in Germany, Portugal, Nigeria, and Iran [18,[25][26][27], these results being like those reported in this study. Interestingly, these species cause serious infections in humans, mainly S. aureus, S. epidermidis, S. hominis, and S. saprophyticus [10,11].…”

“…These bacteria cause mainly hospital but also community infections that can be difficult to treat due to their resistance to antibiotics, primarily vancomycin, linezolid, daptomycin, and tigecycline, which are considered antibiotics of last choice [14]. These bacteria and their resistance genes can reach the environment through hospital and community wastewater discharges [15][16][17][18]. The role of wastewater in the acquisition and dissemination of AMR is currently a topic of interest which has been addressed in other parts of the world [5][6][7][8], but in our country this evidence is almost nil.…”

Macrolide-Lincosamide Resistance and Virulence Genes in Staphylococcus aureus Isolated from Clinical Specimens in Ardabil, Iran

“…In this study, t037, the most common circulating spa type in Iran, was not detected. In a similar study performed in the same setting on S. aureus isolates collected from the teenage healthy student population and wastewater resources, different results were observed, in which t11332 (14.3%) and t346 (25%) were the most common spa types (29,42).…”

“…Overall, 13.5% (16/118) of the isolates showed the iMLSB resistance phenotype. The ermC gene (72.4% [42]) was the most frequent erythromycin resistance-encoding gene, followed by ermA (60.3% [35]), ermB (60.3% [35]), ermTR (51.7% [30]), and msrA (15.5% [9]) genes among erythromycinresistant isolates. The virulence genes hla, hld, sea, LukS PV, tst, seb, sed, eta, sec, and etb were detected in 93.2%, 74.5%, 70.3%, 32.2%, 29.6%, 17%, 8.5%, 8.5%, 5.9%, and 4.2% of the isolates, respectively.…”