Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Jun 7;14(1):177.
doi: 10.1186/s12917-018-1500-6.

Molecular characterization of fluoroquinolone and/or cephalosporin resistance in Shigella sonnei isolates from yaks

Zhen Zhu  1   2 , Yuxiang Shi  2 , Xuzheng Zhou  1 , Bing Li  1 , Jiyu Zhang  3
Affiliations

Molecular characterization of fluoroquinolone and/or cephalosporin resistance in Shigella sonnei isolates from yaks

Zhen Zhu et al. BMC Vet Res. .

Abstract

Background: Members of the genus Shigella are intestinal pathogens and a major cause of seasonal outbreaks of bacterial diarrhea worldwide. Although humans are the conventional hosts of Shigella species, expansion of the Shigella host range to certain animals was recently reported. To investigate the prevalence of Shigella sonnei (S. sonnei) in yaks and perform molecular characterization, we analyzed 1132 fresh yak diarrheal stool samples and collected a total of 44 S. sonnei isolates.

Results: We performed multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) with XbaI-digested DNA to study genetic relatedness among the 44 isolates, which were differentiated into 4 sequence types (STs) and 32 PFGE types (PTs). All isolates harbored virulence genes, and 87.36% tested positive for invasion plasmid antigen H (ipaH), invasion associated locus (ial) and the Shigella enterotoxin gene sen. According to the results of antimicrobial susceptibility tests, 45.45% (20/44) were resistant to fluoroquinolones and/or cephalosporin. By sequencing the quinolone resistance determining region (QRDR) genes, we identified double mutations in gyrA (Ser83-Leu and Asp87-Asn) and a single mutation in parC (Ser80-Ile). All 12 fluoroquinolone-resistant S. sonnei isolates tested positive for the aac(6')-Ib-cr gene but negative for qepA. Three isolates harbored qnr genes, including two with qnrS and one with qnrB. In addition, three types of β-lactamase genes, bla TEM-1 , bla OXA-1 and bla CTX-M-14/79 , were detected in cephalosporin-resistant isolates.

Conclusions: The findings of this study have enriched our knowledge of fluoroquinolone- and/or cephalosporin-resistant S. sonnei isolates from yaks, which has important public health significance.

Keywords: Antimicrobial resistance genes; MLST; PFGE; Shigella sonnei; Virulence gene.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval

This study has gained ethical approval for this study. Our study was conducted according to the Ethics Committee of Animal Experiments at the Institute of Husbandry and Pharmaceutical Sciences of CAAS in Lanzhou, China. And we gained consent from the owners of the animals for them to be used in the study.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Dendrogram of 44 XbaI-digested S. sonnei isolates based on the cluster analysis of PFGE patterns. The dendrogram was constructed using the UPGMA clustering method. The corresponding antibiotic resistance profile, PFGE pattern and background information for each strain is listed on the right side of the dendrogram. R = resistance and no bacteriostatic ring; r = resistance and positive bacteriostatic ring; N = sensitive and intermediary bacteriostatic ring
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Stirling J, Griffith M, Blair I, Cormican M, Dooley JS, Goldsmith CE, Glover SG, Loughrey A, Lowery CJ, Matsuda M, McClurg R, McCorry K, McDowell D, McMahon A, Cherie Millar B, Nagano Y, Rao JR, Rooney PJ, Smyth M, Snelling WJ, Xu J, Moore JE. Prevalence of gastrointestinal bacterial pathogens in a population of zoo animals. Zoonoses Public Health. 2008;55(3):166–172. doi: 10.1111/j.1863-2378.2007.01099.x. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Shi R, Yang X, Chen L, Chang HT, Liu HY, Zhao J, Wang XW, Wang CQ. Pathogenicity of Shigella in chickens. PLoS One. 2014;9(6):e100264. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0100264. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Parajuli P, Adamski M, Verma NK. Bacteriophages are the major drivers of Shigella flexneri serotype 1c genome plasticity: a complete genome analysis. BMC Genomics. 2017;18(1):722. doi: 10.1186/s12864-017-4109-4. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pupo GM, Lan R, Reeves PR. Multiple independent origins of Shigella clones of Escherichia coli and convergent evolution of many of their characteristics. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S. 2000;7(19):10567–10572. doi: 10.1073/pnas.180094797. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Xia S, Xu B, Huang L, Zhao JY, Ran L, Zhang J, Chen H, Pulsrikarn C, Pornruangwong S, Aarestrup FM, Hendriksen RS. Prevalence and characterization of human Shigella infections in Henan Province, China, in 2006. J Clin Microbiol. 2011;49(1):232–242. doi: 10.1128/JCM.01508-10. - DOI - PMC - PubMed