Abstract:
The emergence and increase of resistance to antimicrobial agents, especially to extended-spectrum cephalosporins (ESCs) and fluoroquinolones in nontyphoidal Salmonella have recently become a serious therapeutic problem. The objectives of this study were to characterize antimicrobial resistance mechanisms, the clonality, and plasmid profiles among nontyphoidal Salmonella isolates from human and food animals in Thailand. A total of 897 nontyphoidal Salmonella isolates, 617 isolates from human and 280 isolates from food animal in Thailand during 2005 to 2007 and 2012 to 2016 were included in this study. The significantly higher resistance rates were found in S. Choleraesuis compared with other serotypes to all antimicrobial agents tested (p < 0.0001), except for norfloxacin. S. Choleraesuis showed extremely high rates of resistance to ESCs (56.9%) and ciprofloxacin (19.4%). The results from PFGE and RFLP revealed the predominant antimicrobial resistance clones and plasmids among nontyphoidal Salmonella human isolates. The dissemination of the self-transferable blaCTX-M-14-carrying IncFIIs (E06), IncFII (E20), and IncI1 (E21) plasmids and blaCMY-2-carrying IncA/C (S01) plasmid along with the clonal spread of blaCMY-2-harbouring S. Choleraesuis isolates (C35-01) contributed to the high rates of ESC resistance during 2005 to 2007. Moreover, this study reported the first occurrence of CTX-M-55 in S. Choleraesuis isolates which dramatically increased and became the most abundant CTX-M variant among ESC-resistant isolates during 2012 to 2016. The spread of clone C27-01 was due to the dissemination of IncA/C plasmids carrying blaCTX-M-55 along with qnrS1 among the S. Choleraesuis isolates harbouring D87G in GyrA which was apparently responsible for the high rates of co-resistance to ESCs and ciprofloxacin (44.9%) during 2012 to 2016. The genetically related isolates from human and swine were found in CTX-M-55-producing S. Choleraesuis clone C27-05 isolated in 2014. Interestingly, we found qnrVC4 gene in S. Rissen 166ANSS50 from a swine isolate. This is the first known report of qnrVC in Salmonella enterica. This isolate harbored a ̴17-kb non-conjugative plasmid carrying qnrVC4 within 8.91 kb of a novel In4-like class 1 integron (In805). It contained the multi-drug resistance gene cassettes of qnrVC4-qacH4-aacA4-cmlA7-blaOXA-10-aadA1-dfrA14 and unusual 3-CS of mobC-IS6100. The results of this study underlines the importance of the action plan to control the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance in nontyphoidal Salmonella since this could be global health threats due to travel and trade in animal food products.