ESBL-producing uropathogenic Escherichia coli isolated from dogs and cats in Switzerland

Abstract

Extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia (E.) coli have emerged in human and veterinary medicine. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of ESBL-producers among uropathogenic E. coli isolated from dogs and cats and to characterize detected ESBL-producing isolates by antibiotic susceptibility testing, identification of ESBL genes, multi-locus sequence typing (MLST), detection of putative virulence genes, and analysis of E. coli phylogroups. Among the 107 E. coli isolates derived from urinary samples (59 from dogs, 40 from cats), eight isolates from four different animals (two dogs, two cats) were found to be ESBL-producers. These isolates were of ST533/CTX-M-15/TEM/phylogroup B1 (four strains from one dog), ST410/CTX-M-15/TEM/phylogroup A (three strains, one from a dog and two from a cat), and ST648/CTX-M-15/phylogroup D (one strain from a cat). In terms of putative virulence factors, all isolates harbored lpfA, sat, and tsh, whereas iss was only detected in strains of ST533. Thus, ESBL-producers were detected among uropathogenic E. coli from Swiss companion animals and the eight CTX-M-15-producing isolates belonged to three sequence types (ST410, ST533, ST648) and three E. coli phylogroups (A, B1, D). For the first time, E. coli of ST533 carrying bla(CTX-M-15) were thereby detected in a dog.