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Antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity factors in Staphylococcus aureus isolated from mastitic Sahiwal cattle

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Abstract

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) poses a serious problem in dairy animals suffering from mastitis. In the present study, the distribution of mastitic MRSA and antibiotic resistance was studied in 107 strains of S. aureus isolated from milk samples from 195 infected udders. The characterizations pathogenic factors (adhesin and toxin genes) and antibiotic susceptibility of isolates were carried out using gene amplification and disc diffusion assays, respectively. A high prevalence of MRSA was observed in the tested isolates (13.1%). The isolates were also highly resistant to antibiotics, i.e. 36.4% were resistant to streptomycin, 33.6% to oxytetracycline, 29.9% to gentamicin and 26.2% each to chloramphenicol, pristinomycin and ciprofloxacin. A significant variation in the expression of pathogenic factors (Ig, coa and clf) was observed in these isolates. The overall distribution of adhesin genes ebp, fib, bbp, fnbB, cap5, cap8, map and cna in the isolates was found to be 69.1, 67.2, 6.5, 20.5, 60.7, 26.1, 81.3 and 8.4%, respectively. The presence of fib, fnbB, bbp and map genes was considerably greater in MRSA than in methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) isolates. The proportions of toxin genes, namely, hlb, seb, sec, sed, seg and sei, in the isolates were found to be 94.3, 0.9, 8.4, 0.9, 10.2 and 49.5%, respectively. The proportions of agr genes I, II, III and IV were found to be 39.2, 27.1, 21.5 and 12.1%, respectively. A few isolates showed similar antibiotic-resistance patterns, which could be due to identical strains or the dissemination of the same strains among animals. These findings can be utilized in mastitis treatment programmes and antimicrobials strategies in organized herds.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant from the National Fellow Scheme of Indian Council of Agriculture Research, New Delhi, India. The authors are extremely thankful to Dr Raman Seth (NDRI) for his critical evaluation of manuscript and the staff of Livestock Genome Analysis Laboratory for their assistance in carrying out this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Livestock Genome Analysis Laboratory, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, 132 001, India

    Ravinder Kumar & BR Yadav

  2. Carbohydrate and Protein Biotechnology Laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, Punjabi University, Patiala, 147 002, India

    Ravinder Kumar & RS Singh

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  1. Ravinder Kumar
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  2. BR Yadav
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  3. RS Singh
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Correspondence to BR Yadav.

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[Kumar R, Yadav BR and Singh RS 2011 Antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity factors in Staphylococcus aureus isolated from mastitic Sahiwal cattle. J. Biosci. 36 175–188] DOI 10.1007/s12038-011-9004-6

Corresponding editor: Satish Kumar

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Kumar, R., Yadav, B. & Singh, R. Antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity factors in Staphylococcus aureus isolated from mastitic Sahiwal cattle. J Biosci 36, 175–188 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-011-9004-6

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