Characterization ofvanA-typeEnterococcus faeciumisolates from urban and hospital wastewater and pigs

Abstract

Aims: In this study we analysed urban, hospital wastewater and pig faeces samples to investigate the presence of vancomycin‐resistant Enterococcus faecium strains (VREF) and to determine potential links among the strains originating from the above sources and VREF strains causing clinical infections. Methods and Results: Urban, hospital wastewater and pig faeces exhibited high VREF prevalence of 52%, 87% and 85%, respectively. Pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) clustering of VREF genotypes as well as discriminant analysis of antibiotic resistance patterns of VREF strains revealed their source specificity while strains isolated from hospitalized humans were genetically distinct. Conclusions: PFGE genotypes and antimicrobial resistance patterns in VREF isolates are distinguishable by each sample origin. The observed high genetic diversity of VREF suggests horizontal transfer of genetic elements among VREF. Phenotypic and genotypic data indicate that VREF isolates of hospital‐treated wastewater might pass to the urban wastewater system. Significance and Impact of the Study: This study provides information to understand the origin and the mechanism of circulation of vancomycin resistance in food animals and wastewater treatment plants for minimizing the risk of transmission of VRE in human population.

Soil bacteriological pollution in pig farm vicinity: Assessment of bacterial dynamics and detection of antimicrobial resistance gene

“…Multidrug Resistance Index was observed in this study where 5 isolates had an MDRI ranging from 66 to 83% and 8 isolates had MDRI of 61%. In a study conducted by Kotzamanidis et al (2009), it was observed an AML-CAZ-VA-TE as the most occurring phenotype pattern in isolates from pig farm environment, whereas in this study the most occurring phenotype patterns were P-RL-VA- Table 2. Predominance of multiple antibiotic resistance phenotypes and multidrug resistant index of isolates.…”

Role of House Flies in the Ecology of Enterococcus faecalis from Wastewater Treatment Facilities

“…Enterococci are well recognized as AR gene reservoirs and readily transfer genes both intraand inter-specifically [31,38,73]. A number of mobile genetic elements (MGE) such as plasmids and transposons are present in enterococci which facilitate AR gene transfer [31,73].…”

“…Waste received from environments under significant antibiotic pressure, such as hospitals, consistently contains a greater proportion of singly and multiple drug-resistant bacteria [9,22,26,28,38,60] and AR enterococci are commonly recovered from sewage [2,8,9,28,38,47,51,55]. House flies and other filth flies often have direct and unhindered access to many steps in the waste processing flow and therefore may acquire bacteria associated with the waste.…”

Antibiotic Resistance Profiling and Genotyping of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci Collected from an Urban River Basin in the Provincial City of Miyazaki, Japan

“…The low detection rates of VRE in Japan may be due to a shorter history of the use of avoparcin, a growth promoter for livestock, compared to other countries [33] and the use of lower dosages of VCM clinically than in the US [34]. In European countries, VRE are prevalent in the environment; they were detected in livestock and wastewater treatment plants [35,36]. Several studies indicated that the intensive use of avoparcin as a growth promoter in food animals, such as broilers and pigs has contributed to an increase in VRE [37,38].…”