Open Access

ARTICLE

Detection of new antibiotic resistance gene profile in Escherichia coli associated with avian leukosis virus infection from broiler chickens

by HAIFENG WANG, JUAN GUO, LIJING ZHENG, SHUYING LIU, ZHERONG WANG, HONGXUAN HE

1 School of Environmental Engineering, Central Plains Specialty Food Engineering and Technology Research Center, Kaifeng Key Laboratory of Food Composition and Quality Assessment, Yellow River Conservancy Technical Institute, Kaifeng, 475004, China
2 National Research Center for Wildlife-Borne Diseases, Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

* Address correspondence to: Haifeng Wang,

BIOCELL 2020, 44(2), 217-224. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2020.09051

Received 07 November 2019; Accepted 16 April 2020; Issue published 27 May 2020

Abstract

The Escherichia coli (E. coli) is prevailing worldwide, but the epidemiology of E. coli infections feature regional distribution characteristics to some extent. E. coli, as a zoonotic pathogen, can be transferred from animals to humans through food chain or via contact with wounds, causing a public health risk. We reported the swelling of proventriculus and tracheal bleeding following the death in two broiler chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) from Beijing, China. To investigate whether a virus was involved in the infection, Madin Darby Bovine Kidney (MDCK) cells were co-cultured with supernatants of proventriculus, trachea and spleen homogenates. The avian leucosis virus was detected in the samples of proventriculus and trachea, but the avian influenza virus, the Newcastle disease virus and the avian infectious laryngotracheitis virus were not detected. E. coli isolates were resistant to almost all the antimicrobial as tested except for the combinations of amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim. PCR tests demonstrated the presence of antibiotic resistance genes in these E. coli isolates and further research revealed a novel gene profile with the presence of CTX-M-1, gyrA, gyrB, oqxA, oqxB, parC and Sul2 antibiotic resistance genes in a strain isolated from a proventriculus sample. These results demonstrated that the presence of antibiotic resistant E. coli would not necessarily cause outbreak of large-scale disease. However, when the bacteria carrying new antibiotic resistance genes enter the environment, it may result in the development of more virulent strains which will potentially impact human and animal health.

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