Ready‐to‐eat street food: a potential source for dissemination of multidrug‐resistant Escherichia coli epidemic clones in Quito, Ecuador

Abstract

Significance and Impact of the Study: This study identified ESBL-producing Escherichia coli epidemic clones: ST131, ST410 and ST744 in ready-to-eat street food samples. Street food is a possible way to spread harm multidrug-resistant (MDR) E. coli strains in the community. Studies to identify the contamination sources of this kind of food are needed to tackle MDR E. coli dissemination. AbstractReady-to-eat food contamination with ESBL-producing Escherichia coli is a growing health concern. Some of these strains also are epidemic clones and can cause community-associated infections that are difficult to treat. In this study, the occurrence of ESBL-producing E. coli contaminated ready-to-eat street food in Quito, Ecuador was evaluated. In total, 150 samples were collected randomly in the most crowded sites of the city. In all, 34 samples (34/150; 22Á6%) were positive for total thermotolerant (44Á5°C) coliforms resistant to cefotaxime. MALDI-TOF analysis identified that the E. coli was found in 20 food samples (20/34; 59%). ESBL gene bla CTX-M-55 was identified in nine isolates, bla CTX-M-15 in six isolates, bla CTX-M-14 in two isolates, and one isolate each harboured bla CTX-M-24 , bla CTX-M-65 , bla CTX-M-55 and bla CTX-M-8 . Phylogenetic groups like A and B1 were the most common, followed by groups D and B2. MLST analysis identified 12 different sequence types (STs), the most common was ST162. Recognized epidemic clonal groups ST410, ST131 and ST744 were encountered. Ready-to-eat street food is a potential way of spreading ESBL-producing E. coli epidemic clones in Quito, Ecuador.Letters in Applied Microbiology ISSN 0266-8254

Animal petting zoos as sources of Shiga toxin‐producing Escherichia coli, Salmonella and extended‐spectrum β‐lactamase (ESBL)‐producing Enterobacteriaceae

“…The ESBL‐producing E. coli in this study belonged to a diversity of genotypes. E. coli ST162, isolated from goat faeces in this study, has been identified producing a number of different CTX‐M variants in food such as chicken meat in Japan and street food in Ecuador (Hayashi et al., 2018; Zurita et al., 2020), as well as in healthy livestock and diseased companion animals (Dahms et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2019), indicating that E. coli ST162 may be associated with the dissemination of bla CTX‐M genes in the food chain. Notably, E. coli ST162 has been reported to cause diarrhoea in children (Zhang et al., 2016), pointing to its pathogenic potential.…”

Emergence and Clonal Spread of CTX-M-65-Producing Escherichia coli From Retail Meat in Portugal

“…Here, bla CTX–M–65 is identified in Portugal for the first time in food of animal origin, with no reports linking to human infections; a complete characterization by WGS of the four MDR E. coli harboring this gene is described. E. coli harboring the bla CTX–M–65 gene is commonly found in food-producing animals and meat from Southwest Asian and South American countries ( Rao et al, 2014 ; Na et al, 2019 ; Vinueza-Burgos et al, 2019 ; Zurita et al, 2019 ). Although rarely occurring in Europe, previous studies have reported CTX-M-65-producing E. coli from Dutch beef calves ( Ceccarelli et al, 2019 ) and wild birds from Switzerland ( Zurfluh et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Recently, E. coli ST2179 bearing the bla CTX–M–65 gene but belonging to phylogroup A was reported from ducks in South Korea ( Na et al, 2019 ). Isolates belonging to phylogroup B1 are commonly associated with non-pathogenic commensal E. coli reported from humans, animals, and food products ( Bailey et al, 2010 ; Coura et al, 2015 ; Scheinberg et al, 2017 ; Belaynehe et al, 2018 ; Zurita et al, 2019 ).…”

Circulation of Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamase-Producing Escherichia coli of Pandemic Sequence Types 131, 648, and 410 Among Hospitalized Patients, Caregivers, and the Community in Rwanda

“…Usually, commensal strains and obligatory pathogens belong to the phylogroups A and B1, whereas strains with extended virulent attributes (mainly ExPEC) are part of the phylogroups B2, D, and F, with the latter as a sister group of B2 (Escobar-Páramo et al, 2004;Clermont et al, 2013). Multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) allows additional classification and several phylogenetic studies suggest the spread of pandemic high-risk clonal lineages including primarily sequence type (ST) 131 (Nicolas-Chanoine et al, 2008;Ewers et al, 2010;Hussain et al, 2012), ST648 (Ewers et al, 2014;Schaufler et al, 2019), ST410 (Schaufler et al, 2016b;Zurita et al, 2020), putatively ST405 (Manges et al, 2019), and others.…”