Abstract
BACKGROUND: Multidrug-resistant Salmonella is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries. The aim of this study was to characterize and compare multidrug-resistant Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium isolates from patients and poultry feces. METHODS: Salmonella strains were isolated from poultry and patients using standard bacteriological methods described in previous studies. The strains were serotype according to Kaufmann-White scheme and tested for antibiotic susceptibility to 12 different antimicrobial agents using the disk diffusion method. The whole genome of the S. Typhimurium isolates was analyzed using Illumina technology and compared with 20 isolates of S. Typhimurium for which the ST has been deposited in a global MLST database.The ResFinder Web server was used to find the antibiotic resistance genes from whole genome sequencing (WGS) data. For comparative genomics, publicly available complete and draft genomes of different S. Typhimurium laboratory-adapted strains were downloaded from GenBank. RESULTS: All the tested Salmonella serotype Typhimurium were multiresistant to five commonly used antibiotics (ampicillin, chloramphenicol, streptomycin, sulfonamide, and trimethoprim). The multilocus sequence type ST313 was detected from all the strains. Our sequences were very similar to S. Typhimurium ST313 strain D23580 isolated from a patient with invasive non-typhoid Salmonella (NTS) infection in Malawi, also located in sub-Saharan Africa. The use of ResFinder web server on the whole genome of the strains showed a resistance to aminoglycoside associated with carriage of the following resistances genes: strA, strB, and aadA1; resistance to β-lactams associated with carriage of a bla(TEM-1B) genes; resistance to phenicol associated with carriage of catA1 gene; resistance to sulfonamide associated with carriage of sul1 and sul2 genes; resistance to tetracycline associated with carriage of tet B gene; and resistance to trimethoprim associated to dfrA1 gene for all the isolates. CONCLUSION: The poultry and human isolates were genetically similar showing a potential food safety risk for consumers. Our finding of multidrug-resistant S. Typhimurium ST313 in poultry feces calls for further studies to clarify the potential reservoirs of this emerging pathogen.