Antimicrobial resistance in campylobacter jejuni isolated from Brazilian poultry slaughterhouses

Abstract

Campylobacteriosis is one of the most common foodborne diseases in the world. It is considered the most frequently reported foodborne illness in the European Union (EU) and one of the most important in the United States (US) (EFSA&ECDC, 2018; CDC, 2019a; WHO, 2019). Poultry is known to be the major reservoir and an important source for pathogen transmission to humans (Kaakoush et al., 2015). Campylobacteriosis is most often associated with the consumption of raw and undercooked poultry or the cross-contamination of other foods by these items (CDC, 2019a). Although Brazil is a leading supplier of the world’s poultry meat (ABPA, 2018), Brazil’s official data does not report Campylobacter infections. Resistance in foodborne pathogens presents the potential for their transmission to humans through the food chain (Wang et al., 2013). Campylobacteriosis is generally a self-limiting disease. However, in some patients, Campylobacter infection can result in a systemic disease requiring the use of antimicrobials (CDC, 2019b). Erythromycin is considered the first-line treatment, but fluoroquinolones are also frequently used due to their broad-spectrum activity against enteric pathogens (Engberg et al., 2001). Recently, however, multidrugresistant Campylobacter strains have been detected in poultry and several other sources around the world (Szczepanska et al., 2017; Du et al., 2018; Montgomery et al., 2018). In the EU, Campylobacter isolated from human and poultry sources have shown high to extremely high resistance to ciprofloxacin and tetracycline (EFSA&ECDC 2018), and both substances have been widely used in Brazilian poultry production in recent decades (Machinski Júnior et al., 2005). Ciprofloxacin resistance in Campylobacter strains is usually related to the Tre-86-Ile mutation in the quinolone resistancedetermining region (QRDR) of the gyrA gene, which results in the replacement of the amino acid threonine by isoleucine (Frasao et al., 2015a). Resistance to tetracycline is usually related to the presence of the tetO gene (Pratt & Korolik, 2005). Our aim was to assess the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) for Campylobacter jejuni strains and determine their molecular resistance profiles to tetracycline and ciprofloxacin.