Antimicrobial resistance of Yersinia enterocolitica and presence of plasmid pYV virulence genes in human and animal isolates

T Gkouletsos; K Patas; G Lambrinidis; H Neubauer; L D Sprague; A Ioannidis; S Chatzipanagiotou

doi:10.1016/j.nmni.2019.100604

Antimicrobial resistance of Yersinia enterocolitica and presence of plasmid pYV virulence genes in human and animal isolates

New Microbes New Infect. 2019 Oct 7:32:100604. doi: 10.1016/j.nmni.2019.100604. eCollection 2019 Nov.

Authors

T Gkouletsos^{1

2}, K Patas¹, G Lambrinidis³, H Neubauer⁴, L D Sprague⁴, A Ioannidis^{1

5}, S Chatzipanagiotou¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biopathology and Clinical Microbiology, Aeginition Hospital, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
² Department of Biological Applications and Technologies, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece.
³ Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Department of Pharmacy, School of Health Sciences, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
⁴ Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Federal Research Institut for Animal Health, Institute for Bacterial Infections and Zoonoses, Jena, Germany.
⁵ Department of Nursing, Faculty of Human Movement and Quality of Life Sciences, University of Peloponnese, Sparta, Greece.

Abstract

Interactions between bacterial virulence and antimicrobial resistance are of increasing interest in clinical microbiology. On this account, antimicrobial resistance of Yersinia enterocolitica O:3 strains isolated from humans (n = 55), food-chain animals (n = 58) and companion animals (n = 13) was determined in relation to the absence or presence of the pYV plasmid-encoded virulence genes yadA and virF. There were no statistically significant associations between the rate of antimicrobial resistance and the presence or absence of the plasmid, in either human-derived or animal-derived strains. Therefore, it can be concluded that response to conventionally used antimicrobials in Y. enterocolitica O:3 strains is not dependent on pYV-encoded virulence determinants.

Keywords: Antimicrobial resistance; Yersinia enterocolitica; pYV plasmid; virF; yadA.