Abstract
Commensal Escherichia coli from the poultries have been considered as reservoirs of extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBL)-encoding genes. Between May 2018 and March 2019, a total of 340 E. coli isolates were obtained from apparently healthy broiler chickens from 20 to 40 D old, distributed in 17 small-scale commercial farms. Finally, 45 isolates (8 from 20-day-old broiler chickens, 14 from 30-day-old ones, and 23 from 40-day-old ones) were identified as ESBL producers, which were further investigated to shed light on the virulence gene profiles, phylogenetic groups, and multilocus sequence types and to detect the ESBL plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance determinant (PMQR) genes as well as the mutations in the quinolone resistance-determining regions (QRDR) of gyrA and parC. Molecular analysis showed that phylogenic group A and B1 accounted for 66.7% of the ESBL producers. The overall occurrence of virulence genes ranged from 5.1% (cva) to 86.7% (papC). Twenty (44.4%) ESBL producers were considered as biofilm producers with moderate or heavy biofilm formation. The most predominant specific CTX-M subtype was bla(CTX-M-14) (n = 19), followed by bla(CTX-M-9) (n = 17), bla(CTX-M-55) (n = 9), bla(CTX-M-15) (n = 6), bla(CTX-M-1) (n = 5), and bla(CTX-M-65) (n = 4). Additionally, PMQR genes were identified in 86.7% of ESBL producers, qnrS (n = 21) was the most dominant PMQR gene, followed by the aac(6')-Ib-cr (n = 15), qnrB (n = 12), and qnrA (n = 9), and all of them co-expressed with β-lactamase genes. All PMQR-positive isolates harbored simultaneously at least 1 mutation in the QRDR of gyrA and parC. Forty-five ESBL producers were assigned to 33 sequence types, and the most frequent sequence types (STs) was ST10 (n = 5) and followed by ST95 (n = 3). Additionally, ST302, ST88, ST410, ST187, and ST23 were represented by 2 ESBL producers, respectively, and the remaining ones exhibited diverse ST. Moreover, the prevalence of ESBL producers, the biofilm-forming ability, and the occurrence of the QRDR mutations among the E. coli isolates were characterized by gradually increased with advancing age of broiler chickens.