Escherichia coli as a carrier of tetracyclines and penicillins resistance in wild pheasant (Phasianus colchicus)

Abstract

Wild animals like pheasant seem to be a good source of information about human activities. Therefore, the wild pheasants and relative stable appendix microcenosis were selected for antibiotic resistance testing. Penicillin resistance by MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry and tetracyclines resistance by genetic methods using specific primers were tested. Differences between tetracycline and penicillin resistance were detected. Results showed high prevalence of resistant Escherichia coli isolated from wild pheasant appendix. E. coli isolated from wild pheasant appendix carried plasmids for penicillins and tetracyclines resistance where they were responsible for enzymatic degradation of penicillin and carried genes for regulating efflux pumps for tetracyclines. Results showed that tetracyclines and penicillins resistance is widespread between wild pheasants with a carrier as Escherichia coli isolated from relative stable microcenosis of appendix.

Keywords:

• E. coli
• resistance
• pheasant
• tetracyclines
• penicillins
• MALDI-TOF MS
• PCR

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under Contract no. APVV-16-0289.