Presence of drug resistance in intestinal lactobacilli of dairy and human origin in Turkey

Abstract

The prevalence of different resistance genes was investigated in lactobacilli of human and dairy origin by PCR. The presence of erm, van, tet, and cat-TC genes were determined in 16 raw milk, 15 cream, 10 yogurt, 50 hand-made cheese, and 20 industrially produced white-cheese samples of dairy origin and 16 mouth, 32 fecal, and 36 vaginal samples from different subjects of human origin. Lactobacilli of dairy and human origin were found to carry only erm(B) and tet(M) genes. The majority of the isolates, Lactobacillus crispatus (61), Lactobacillus gasseri (49), Lactobacillus plantarum (80) studied were found to harbor either erm(B) or tet(M) gene or both. No resistant lactobacilli was found in raw-milk and cream samples. All the human fecal samples and the majority of vaginal (29 of 36) and mouth (10 of 14) samples were found to carry the resistance genes. While a third of the hand-made cheeses carried resistant lactobacilli only one industrially produced cheese was found to carry resistant lactobacilli. Furthermore, the genes were found in the non-starter species, Lactobacillus acidophilus and Lb. plantarum, indicating that industrially produced cheeses in this respect could be considered more favorable. These results indicate that drug resistance seems to be very common in Turkey. Even though the number of dairy samples harboring the resistance genes (17 of 111) is smaller in regards to human samples, 10% of them were still found to carry the resistance genes as well. The presence of the resistance genes in majority of the samples of human origin and in minority of the samples of dairy origin indicates that drug resistance may be acquired in the intestinal tract during passage and spread to dairy products by the hands of workers during production.

Antibiotic susceptibility of Lactobacillus rhamnosus strains isolated from Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

“…Differential susceptibility to vancomycin may be helpful in speciation of lactobacilli. The finding that all the strains tested in the present study were resistant to this antibiotic is in accordance with the results of Hamilton-Miller and Shah [20] and with previous studies, which have shown that the vancomycin resistance in lactobacilli is intrinsic and chromosomally encoded [11].…”

“…Finally, Çataloluk and Gogebakan [11] pointed out that the presence of the resistance genes in the majority of the lactobacilli of intestinal origin suggests that transfer of such genes from an unknown origin during the passage from the intestinal tract is more likely.…”

“…However, these bacteria are susceptible to many other antibiotics and they have not been reported to easily acquire antibiotic resistance determinants like the enterococci [11].…”

Antibiogram of Lactobacilli Isolated from Four Different Niches

“…However contradictory to this, resistance to tetracycline is reported as the most frequent among lactobacilli [11,12]. Earlier reports by a number of authors [8,[13][14][15] ranking the resistance genes, tet(M) for tetracycline resistance as most common in LAB also supports the prevalence of tetracycline resistance in LAB. However in the present study all the isolates were found to be sensitive to this particular antibiotic.…”

Safety Evaluation Of Sjenica Cheese With Regard To Coagulase-Positive Staphylococci And Antibiotic Resistance Of Lactic Acid Bacteria And Staphylococci

“…There is an observation that tet(M) gene is the most frequently found tetracyline resistance determinant in LAB [71]. The widespread distribution of tet(M) among members of L. plantarum, L. curvatus, L. casei, L. acidophilus, L. gasseri and L. crispatus was reported by several authors [46,71,72]. Ammor et al [73] confi rmed coexistence of two tetracycline resistance genes tet(M) and tet(K) in a foodborne strain of Lactobacillus sakei.…”