Prevalence, antimicrobial resistance and virulence traits in enterococci from food of animal origin in Turkey

- The prevalence of Enterococci in meat samples from retail outlets in Turkey.
- The presence of virulence genes was analysed.
- The presence of genes encoding resistance to vancomycin, erithromycine and tetracycline were also screened.

The objective of this work was to investigate the antibiotic susceptibility, the mechanisms implicated and the potential virulence genes (gelatinase [gelE], cytolysins [cylA, cylM, cylB], cell wall adhesins [efaAfs and efaAfm], enterococcal surface protein [esp], sex pheromones [cpd, cob, ccf], enhanced expression of pheromone [eep], aggregation substance [aggA]) in enterococci isolated from retail chicken and beef meat samples in Hatay, Turkey. Hundred-one (96%) isolates from chicken meat and sixty-three (63%) from minced meat isolates showed resistance to at least one of the 12 antimicrobial agents tested. The highest frequency of resistance was against tetracycline (89.5% and 53%), erythromycin (59% and 2%), ciprofloxacin (35.2% and 12%) and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (34.3% and 7%) for isolates from chicken and beef samples, respectively. The ermB, tetM and tetL genes were predominantly detected by PCR. Five enterococci from chicken meat were found to be phenotypically resistant to vancomycin and carried the vanA gene. The presence of virulence genes including gelE, ccf, cpd, efaAfs, and aggA were frequently detected. The results of this study show that retail chicken and beef meat is source of concern for public health due to having high prevalence of antibiotic resistance and as well as harbouring virulence factors.