Isolation and molecular characterization of quinolone resistant Salmonella spp. from poultry farms

The antimicrobial susceptibility of 94 Salmonella strains isolated from different poultry farms in Chile (broiler and laggin hens) were analyzed by the dilution plates method. Thirty-nine of them were resistant to flumequine, nalidixic acid and oxolinic acid with MIC values higher than 64 μg/ml. These quinolone resistant strains were analyzed in order to determine the presence of mutations in the QRDR region of gyrA gene by AS-PCR-RFLP analysis. 51.3% of the strains showed mutations at codon Ser 83 and 41.0% showed mutations at codon Asp 87. No mutations were observed on codon Gly 81. These mutations were confirmed by sequenciation of one representative strain from different RFLP pattern. Likewise, no double mutations were observed. Over 90% of the quinolone resistant strains presented mutations at the QRDR region of the gyrA gene. Three phenotypically resistant strains did not show any mutations on the QRDR region of gyrA gene. However, other molecular resistant mechanism could be involve. This is the first study that demonstrate the emergency of quinolone and fluoroquinolone resistance in Chilean Salmonella strains isolated from poultry thus indicating the requirement of monitoring programmes in veterinary medicine.