Antibiotic resistance profiles of vancomycin resistant enterococci in chicken meat samples

Abstract

Antibiotic resistance is one of the serious threats to global public health and food safety today. Acquired antibiotic resistance in microorganisms arises from prevalent use of antibiotics for human and animal medicine. Owing to the fact that Vancomycin Resistant Enteroccocci (VRE) is a vital problem for public health, determination of the antibiotic resistance profiles of Enterococcus spp. isolates have crucial importance as a part of the farm to fork food safety. In the study, 120 retail chicken meat samples were analyzed, and 36 (30%) of the samples were detected as Enterococcus spp. positive. According to the results, the most prevalent species was E. faecalis with a rate of 44.4% (16/36), followed by 27.8% (10/36) E. faecium, 11.1% (4/36) E. durans, 2.8% (1/36) E. gallinarum and 2.8% (1/36) E. casseliflavus. Antibiotic resistance profiles of the verified Enterococcus spp. isolates were determined with disc diffusion method in terms of eight different antibiotics. Among the Enterococcus spp. isolates, 20 (55.5%) isolates were phenotypically resistant to vancomycin, 6 isolates (16.7%) were detected as vanA positive, 3 isolates (8.3%) were detected as vanB positive, and one isolate (5%) showed high resistance to vancomycin (MIC >256 μg/ml). Even though the observed percentages are low, the observed resistance patterns are still of concern for public health.