Prevalence and distribution of resistance and enterotoxins/enterotoxin-like genes in different clinical isolates of coagulase-negative Staphylococcus

Coagulase-negative staphylococci from bovine milk: Antibiogram profiles and virulent gene detection

BACKGROUND

Coagulase-negative Staphylococcus species are an emerging cause of intramammary infection, posing a significant economic and public health threat. The aim of this study was to assess the occurrence of coagulase-negative Staphylococcus species in bovine milk and dairy farms in Northwestern Ethiopia and to provide information about their antibiotic susceptibility and virulence gene profiles.

METHODS

The cross-sectional study was conducted from February to August 2022. Coagulase-negative Staphylococcus species were isolated from 290 milk samples. Species isolation and identification were performed by plate culturing and biochemical tests and the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of each isolate was determined by the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion test. The single-plex PCR was used to detect the presence of virulent genes. The STATA software version 16 was used for data analysis. The prevalence, proportion of antimicrobial resistance and the number of virulent genes detected from coagulase-negative Staphylococcus species were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

RESULTS

Coagulase-negative Staphylococcus species were isolated in 28.6%, (95% CI: 23.5-34.2) of the samples. Of these, the S. epidermidis, S. sciuri, S. warneri, S. haemolyticus, S. simulans, S. chromogens, S. cohnii, and S. captis species were isolated at the rates of 11, 5.2, 3.4, 3.1, 3.1, 1, 1, and 0.7% respectively. All the isolates showed a high percentage (100%) of resistance to Amoxicillin, Ampicillin, and Cefotetan and 37.5% of resistance to Oxacillin. The majority (54.2%) of coagulase-negative isolates also showed multidrug resistance. Coagulase-negative Staphylococcus species carried the icaD, pvl, mecA, hlb, sec, and hla virulent genes at the rates of 26.5%, 22.1%, 21.7%, 9.6%, 9.6% and 8.4% respectively.

CONCLUSION

The present study revealed that the majority of the isolates (54.2%) were found multidrug-resistant and carriage of one or more virulent and enterotoxin genes responsible for intramammary and food poisoning infections. Thus, urgent disease control and prevention measures are warranted to reduce the deleterious impact of coagulase-negative species. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in Ethiopia to detect coagulase-negative Staphylococcus species with their associated virulent and food poisoning genes from bovine milk.

Staphylococcus aureus Infections and Human Intestinal Microbiota

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a common pathogen that can cause many human diseases, such as skin infection, food poisoning, endocarditis, and sepsis. These diseases can be minor infections or life-threatening, requiring complex medical management resulting in substantial healthcare costs. Meanwhile, as the critically ignored "organ," the intestinal microbiome greatly impacts physiological health, not only in gastrointestinal diseases but also in disorders beyond the gut. However, the correlation between S. aureus infection and intestinal microbial homeostasis is largely unknown. Here, we summarized the recent progress in understanding S. aureus infections and their interactions with the microbiome in the intestine. These summarizations will help us understand the mechanisms behind these infections and crosstalk and the challenges we are facing now, which could contribute to preventing S. aureus infections, effective treatment investigation, and vaccine development.

Pathogenic potential of meat-borne coagulase negative staphylococci strains from slaughterhouse to fork

This study aimed to determine the prevalence of coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) in meat processing lines for their pathogenic potential associated with biofilm formation, staphylococcal toxin genes, and antibiotic resistance in obtained isolates. Out of 270 samples, 56 isolates were identified as staphylococcal with their species level, and their antimicrobial resistance profiles were also determined with the BD Phoenix™ system. Among these, CoNS were found in 32 isolates, including S. epidermidis (22%), S. warneri (22%), S. cohnii (9%), S. schleiferi (9%), S. capitis (6%), S. haemolyticus (6%), S. lugdunensis (6%), S. chromogenes (6%), S. kloosii (3%), S. sciuri (3%), S. lentus (3%), and S. caprae (3%). Biofilm formation was observed in 78.1% of CoNS isolates, with 56% being strong biofilm producers; and the frequency of the icaA, fnbA, and fnbB genes were 43.7% and 34.3%, and 9.3% in isolates, respectively. Twenty-five (78.1%) of these strains were resistant to at least one antimicrobial agent, 20 (80%) of which exhibited multidrug resistance (MDR). Regarding genotypic analyses, 15.6%, 22.2%, 87.5%, and 9% of isolates, were positive for blaZ, ermC, tetK, and aacA-aphD, respectively. In 8 (25%) of all isolates had one or more staphylococcal toxin genes: the sed gene was the most frequent (12.5%), followed by eta (9.3%), tst-1 (6.25%), and sea (3.1%). In conclusion, this study highlights meat; and meat products might be reservoirs for the biofilm-producing MDR-CoNS, which harbored several toxin genes. Hence, it should not be ignored that CoNS may be related to foodborne outbreaks.

Identification of the Enterotoxigenic Potential of Staphylococcus spp. from Raw Milk and Raw Milk Cheeses

This study aimed to genotypic and phenotypic analyses of the enterotoxigenic potential of Staphylococcus spp. isolated from raw milk and raw milk cheeses. The presence of genes encoding staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs), including the classical enterotoxins (sea-see), non-classical enterotoxins (seg-seu), exfoliative toxins (eta-etd) and toxic shock syndrome toxin-1 (tst-1) were investigated. Isolates positive for classical enterotoxin genes were then tested by SET-RPLA methods for toxin expression. Out of 75 Staphylococcus spp. (19 Staphylococcus aureus and 56 CoNS) isolates from raw milk (49/65.3%) and raw milk cheese samples (26/34.7%), the presence of enterotoxin genes was confirmed in 73 (97.3%) of them. Only one isolate from cheese sample (1.3%) was able to produce enterotoxin (SED). The presence of up to eight different genes encoding enterotoxins was determined simultaneously in the staphylococcal genome. The most common toxin gene combination was sek, eta present in fourteen isolates (18.7%). The tst-1 gene was present in each of the analyzed isolates from cheese samples (26/34.7%). Non-classical enterotoxins were much more frequently identified in the genome of staphylococcal isolates than classical SEs. The current research also showed that genes tagged in S. aureus were also identified in CoNS, and the total number of different genes detected in CoNS was seven times higher than in S. aureus. The obtained results indicate that, in many cases, the presence of a gene in Staphylococcus spp. is not synonymous with the ability of enterotoxins production. The differences in the number of isolates with genes encoding SEs and enterotoxin production may be mainly due to the limit of detection of the toxin production method used. This indicates the need to use high specificity and sensitivity methods for detecting enterotoxin in future studies.

Enterotoxin- and Antibiotic-Resistance-Encoding Genes Are Present in Both Coagulase-Positive and Coagulase-Negative Foodborne Staphylococcus Strains

Food poisoning by staphylococcal enterotoxins (SE) is a major cause of foodborne illness, often associated with coagulase-positive staphylococci (CPS). The increase in the number of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains is another major problem associated with CPS. However, reports of the association of SE and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus with coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) are beginning to re-emerge. In this context, the aim of this study is to investigate the presence of staphylococcal enterotoxin genes and to characterize the phenotypic and genotypic antimicrobial resistance in 66 isolates of Staphylococcus spp. (47 CNS and 19 CPS) recovered from ready-to-eat (RTE) street food sold in Maputo, Mozambique. Seven virulence genes encoding SE (sea, seb, sec, sed and see) and two toxins (hlb and sak) were screened by multiplex PCR (MPCR). Antimicrobial resistance against 12 antibiotics was evaluated by the disk diffusion method. The presence of genes encoding resistance to penicillin, methicillin, vancomycin and erythromycin (blaZ, mecA, vancA, vancB, ermA, ermB and ermC) were also screened by PCR. At least one of the seven virulence genes assessed in this study was detected in 57.9% and 51% of CPS and CNS isolates, respectively. In CPS isolates, the most frequent gene was hlb (47.4%), followed by sec (15.8%) and sea, seb and sed genes with 5.3% each. In CNS isolates, the most frequent gene was sec (36.2%) followed by sak (17%), hlb (14.9%), sed (12.8%) and seb (6.4%). Five of the twelve CPS in which virulence genes were detected were also antibiotic-resistant. All the CNS isolates harboring virulence genes (n = 27, 57.4%) were antimicrobial-resistant. The prevalence of multidrug resistance was higher (59.6%) in CNS than in CPS (26.3%) isolates. Regarding the presence of antibiotic-resistance genes, blaZ (penicillin-resistant) was the most frequent in both CPS (42.1%) and CNS (87.2%), followed by the mecA (encoding methicillin resistance) and vancA genes (vancomycin-resistant), which represented 36.8% and 31.6% in CPS isolates and 46.8% in CNS isolates, respectively. The prevalence of vancomycin-resistant staphylococci has been increasing worldwide and, to our knowledge, this is the first study to report the occurrence of vancomycin-resistant staphylococci in Mozambique. These results emphasize the need to investigate CNS isolates in parallel with CPS, as both constitute public health hazards, given their potential to produce SE and spread antimicrobial resistance genes.

Occurrence of Antibiotic-Resistant Staphylococcus spp. in Orange Orchards in Thailand

BACKGROUND

The widespread indiscriminate application of antibiotics to food crops to control plant disease represents a potential human health risk. In this study, the presence of antibiotic-resistant staphylococci associated with workers and orange orchard environments was determined. A total of 20 orchards (orange and other fruits) were enrolled in the study. Trees in the orange orchards were treated with ampicillin on a pre-determined schedule. Environmental samples (n = 60) included soil, water, and oranges; 152 hand and nasal samples were collected from 76 healthy workers. Antibiotic susceptibility profiles were determined for all staphylococcal isolates.

RESULTS

This investigation revealed that of the total Staphylococcus spp. recovered from the orange orchard, 30% (3/10) were resistant to erythromycin, 20% (2/10) were resistant to ampicillin, and 20% (2/10) resistant to both erythromycin and ampicillin.

CONCLUSION

The application of antibiotics to orange trees in open production environments to halt the spread of bacterial disease presents risks to the environment and creates health concerns for Thai farmers using those agents. ARB on crops such as oranges may enter the global food supply and adversely affect public health.

Novel Treatments and Preventative Strategies Against Food-Poisoning Caused by Staphylococcal Species

Staphylococcal infections are a widespread cause of disease in humans. In particular, S. aureus is a major causative agent of infection in clinical medicine. In addition, these bacteria can produce a high number of staphylococcal enterotoxins (SE) that may cause food intoxications. Apart from S. aureus, many coagulase-negative Staphylococcus spp. could be the source of food contamination. Thus, there is an active research work focused on developing novel preventative interventions based on food supplements to reduce the impact of staphylococcal food poisoning. Interestingly, many plant-derived compounds, such as polyphenols, flavonoids, or terpenoids, show significant antimicrobial activity against staphylococci, and therefore these compounds could be crucial to reduce the incidence of food intoxication in humans. Here, we reviewed the most promising strategies developed to prevent staphylococcal food poisoning.