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Original Articles

Rapid rise of the ESBL and mcr-1 genes in Escherichia coli of chicken origin in China, 2008–2014

, , , , , , , & ORCID Icon show all
Pages 1-10 | Received 19 Sep 2017, Accepted 08 Jan 2018, Published online: 14 Mar 2018
 

Abstract

Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli (ESBL-EC) strains are emerging around the world as a source of resistance to β-lactam antibiotics such as ampicillin, cefotaxime, and ceftazidime. mcr-1 is a novel plasmid-mediated gene conferring resistance to colistin. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of ESBL-EC mcr-1 of chicken origin in the different provinces of China during 2008–2014. Overall, 341 of 821 isolates were determined to be ESBL-EC strains, and the proportion of ESBL-positive strains almost doubled from 2008 to 2014. The findings of our study revealed regional differences, with significantly more ESBL-EC isolates from stockbreeding in concentrated poultry industry areas in Shandong than from the other four provinces. The ESBL type analysis showed that blaCTX-M was the most prevalent ESBL-encoding gene (92.7%). In total, twelve subtypes of CTX-M genes were detected, among which, blaCTX-M-55 (34.3%) and blaCTX-M-65 (17.9%) were the major identified genotypes. In addition, blaTEM and pAmpC genes were carried by 86.0% and 8.5% of isolates, respectively. In this study, we also observed 44 E. coli isolates with multiple ST types (ST46, ST1286, ST10, ST29, ST101, and ST354) carrying mcr-1, and the majority of mcr-1–carrying plasmids were IncI2. The whole-genome sequencing analysis indicated the co-existence of blaCTX-M and mcr-1 in ESBL-EC of both animal and human origin, and phylogenetic analysis further revealed their close relationship, especially several isolates sharing a small number of SNPs, which suggested the increasing trend of co-existence and transmission of ESBL and mcr-1 in both clinical medicine and veterinary medicine.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFD0501301, 2016YFD0501304, and 2016YFD0501305), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31572568, 81661138002).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Electronic supplementary material

Supplementary Information accompanies this paper at (10.1038/s41426-018-0033-1).