Zoonotic potential of Escherichia coli and other Enterobacteriaceae isolated from poultry meat: study of antibiotic resistances and definition of clonal groups pathogenic for humans

Abstract

The emergence of UTIs caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria in the last decades poses a challenge for human medicine. In contrast to enteric E. coli pathotypes, which have been associated with diarrhoeal illnesses and linked to a wide variety of contaminated foods, extraintestinal E. coli (ExPEC) does not cause disease in the gut of colonized individuals, but rather persists in the intestine until there happens an opportunity to cause infection. The hypothesis that food, in particular poultry products, may act as a reservoir for human ExPEC is derived from multiple lines of evidence. Studies of ESBL-positive ExPEC lineages tend to be over-represented while lacking data on foodborne transmission of high-risk strains for humans due to bias on its sampling methodolody. If the increase in antimicrobial-resistant extraintestinal infections caused by E. coli is attributable to the introduction of new MDR ExPEC lineages through contaminated food products, then the relevance to public health, food animal production and food safety would be significant. The main objective of the present project is to know the role of food (particularly poultry products) in the transmission to humans of high-risk E. coli strains. In this context, high-risk strains would be those with the capability of developing an extraintestinal multiresistant infection. To get this objective, an efficient protocol will be designed to recover ExPEC and/or ESBL E. coli strains from meat of different avian origins. The clonal groups recovered with this protocol and identified as high-risk groups for humans will be compared through complete genomic analysis.Therefore, the present project focuses on a topic of scientific concern worldwide, and addresses one of the challenges identified in the Spanish Strategy for Science and Technology and Innovation, namely the challenge of Security, food quality.