The Invisible Threat of Antibiotic Resistance in Food

Abstract

The continued and improper use of antibiotics has resulted in the emergence of antibiotic resistance (AR). The dissemination of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms occurs via a multitude of pathways, including the food supply. The failure to comply with the regulatory withdrawal period associated with the treatment of domestic animals or the illicit use of antibiotics as growth promoters has contributed to the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in meat and dairy products. It was demonstrated that not only do animal and human pathogens act as donors of antibiotic resistance genes, but also that lactic acid bacteria can serve as reservoirs of genes encoding for antibiotic resistance. Consequently, the consumption of fermented foods also presents a potential conduit for the dissemination of AR. This review provides an overview of the potential for the transmission of antibiotic resistance in a range of traditional and novel foods. The literature data reveal that foodborne microbes can be a significant factor in the dissemination of antibiotic resistance.

Keywords: antibiotics; bacteria; foods; gene transfer; potential risk; resistance.

Figure 1

A complex heatmap with hierarchical clustering that depicts the phenotypic antimicrobial resistance profiles of seven LAB genera. The X-axis displays LAB serovars (n = 37), while the Z-axis represents the panel of antibiotic disks tested (n = 24). The cells with red diamonds indicate resistance and turquoise cells signify either susceptibility or an unidentified characteristic [5,216,219,228,256,267,268,269,270,271,272,273,274,275,276,277,278,279,280,281,282,283,284,285,286,287,288,289,290].

Figure 2

A complex heatmap with hierarchical clustering that illustrates the existence pattern of twelve antibiotic class resistance genes in seven LAB genera. The X-axis displays LAB serovars (37), while the Z-axis represents the panel of M-PCR amplified resistant genes (n = 35). The cells with red diamonds indicate existence and turquoise cells signify either gene absence or an unidentified characteristic [5,216,219,228,256,267,268,269,270,271,272,273,274,275,276,277,278,279,280,281,282,283,284,285,286,287,288,289,290,291].