The diversities of staphylococcal species, virulence and antibiotic resistance genes in the subclinical mastitis milk from a single Chinese cow herd

• We found different distributions of the main CNS species in subclinical mastitis milk.
• We found different virulence gene patterns in the staphylococci from subclinical mastitis milk.
• We found high prevalence of mecA gene in staphylococci from subclinical mastitis milk.

Staphylococci are the leading pathogens of bovine mastitis which is difficult to control. However, the published data on the prevalence of staphylococcal species, virulence and antibiotic resistance genes in bovine mastitis from China are limited. In this study, 104 out of 209 subclinical mastitis milk samples from a single Chinese dairy herd were cultured-positive for staphylococci (49.8%), which were further identified as coagulase-positive staphylococci (CPS) or coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS). According to the partial tuf and/or 16S rRNA gene sequence, the 28 CPS isolates were confirmed to be Staphylococcus aureus (26.9%), and 76 CNS isolates were assigned to 13 different species (73.1%) with Staphylococcus arlettae, Staphylococcus sciuri, Staphylococcus xylosus and Staphylococcus chromogenes as the dominant species. In the 28 S. aureus isolates, the most prevalent general virulence genes were coa, Ig and eno (100%), followed by hla (96.4%), hlb (92.9%), fib (92.9%), clfA (89.3%), clfB (85.7%) and nuc (85.7%). Both exotoxin and biofilm-associated genes were significantly less prevalent than the previously reported. Although 19 different virulence gene patterns were found, only one was dominant (32.1%). The prevalence of blaZ (82.1%) or mecA gene (35.7%) was much higher than the previously reported. In the 76 CNS isolates, the virulence genes were significantly less prevalent than that in the S. aureus isolates. Among the 4 main CNS species, S. chromogenes (n = 12) was the only species with high percentage (75%) of blaZ gene, while S. sciuri (n = 12) was the only species with the high percentage (66.7%) of mecA gene. The most of antibiotic resistance genes were present as multi-resistance genes, and the antibiotic resistances were attributed by different resistance genes between resistant S. aureus and CNS isolates. These data suggest that the prevalence of staphylococcal species, virulence and antibiotic resistance in the mastitis milk from the Chinese dairy herd are different from the previously reported, and that the herd- or farm-based diagnosis of staphylococcal bovine mastitis is required.