Prevalence, molecular epidemiology, and antimicrobial resistance of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus from swine in southern Italy

Abstract

Background Colonization by livestock-associated MRSA (LA-MRSA) has increasingly been reported in the swine population worldwide. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of MRSA nasal carriage in healthy pigs, including the black ( Calabrese ) breed, from farms in the Calabria Region (Southern Italy). Between January and March 2018, a total of 475 healthy pigs reared in 32 farms were sampled by nasal swabbing. MRSA isolates were characterized by spa , MLST and SCC mec typing, and susceptibility testing to 17 antimicrobials. Results 22 of 32 (66.8%) pig farms resulted positive for MRSA. The prevalence of MRSA was 46.1% (219 MRSA culture-positive out of 475 samples). MRSA colonization was significantly higher in intensive farms and in pigs with a recent or ongoing antimicrobial treatment. All 219 MRSA isolates were assigned to ST398. The most common spa types were t011 (37.0%), t034 (22.4%) and t899 (15.1%). A novel spa type (t18290) was detected in one isolate. An insertion of IS 256 in the ST398-specific A07 fragment of the SAPIG2195 gene was detected in 10 out of 81 t011 isolates. Nearly all isolates carried the SCC mec type V element, except 11 isolates that carried the SCC mec type IVc. None of the isolates was positive for the Panton-Valentine leukocidin. All isolates were resistant to tetracycline. High resistance rates were also found for clindamycin (93.1%), trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (68.4%), fluoroquinolones (47.9–65.3%) and erythromycin (46.1%). None of the isolates was resistant to vancomycin and fusidic acid. Overall, a multidrug resistant phenotype was observed in 88.6% of isolates. Conclusions We report a high prevalence of MRSA among healthy swine in Southern Italy farms, with higher isolation frequency associated with intensive farming. The epidemiological types identified in our study reflect those reported in other European countries. Our findings underscore the importance of monitoring the evolution of LA-MRSA in pig farms in order to implement control measures and reduce the risk of spread in the animal population. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12866-019-1422-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Occurrence of multidrug-resistant methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureusamong healthy farm animals: a public health concern

“…MRSA is probably the best example of a prevalent and important multidrug-resistant bacterium that has successfully transitioned from an almost exclusively nosocomial setting to being widespread in the community [29]. All obtained MRSA isolates in this study were multidrug-resistant strains (exhibiting resistance to 3-5 antibiotic categories), a result which was in accordance with that reported in healthy bovines in Belgium [12] and healthy pigs in Southern Italy [13].…”

“…After being well established in the health-care setting, MRSA found its way towards the community and now community-acquired MRSA has a mounting public health burden [11]. Given the serious threat of zoonotic MRSA transmission, the subsequent detection of multidrug-resistant MRSA among animals was of major concern [12,13]. Therefore, the current study was conducted in order to investigate the occurrence of multidrug-resistant MRSA among apparently healthy farm animals to shed more light on the potential role of these animals as a reservoir for multidrug-resistant MRSA.…”

Prevalence, antimicrobial resistance and staphylococcal toxin gene of blaTEM-1a-producing Staphylococcus aureus isolated from animals in Chongqing, China

“…Most of isolates, particularly obtained from pigs and chicken, in this study, were high resistance and multi-drug resistant. The high prevalence of resistance to antimicrobials in our study was similar to that reported in previous studies [1,29,33,35]. Antimicrobial agents are often used for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases and growing promotion of food producing animals in intensive production.…”

An Enhanced Variant Designed From DLP4 Cationic Peptide Against Staphylococcus aureus CVCC 546

“…Nevertheless, the long-term use of antibiotics in animal breeding can accelerate the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB), including Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause trauma infection, abscess, cellulitis, mastitis, endometritis, arthritis, septicemia, and sepsis in animals (Fluit, 2012;Foster, 2012;Dan et al, 2019). It has been found that S. aureus is resistant to tetracycline, methicillin, erythromycin, clindamycin, ciprofloxacin, and vancomycin (Hiramatsu, 2001;Lai et al, 2018;Pirolo et al, 2019). The interactions among animals, humans, and the environment have also strengthened the spreading of ARB (Cheng et al, 2013;Laxminarayan et al, 2013;Maertens et al, 2019).…”