Bacteriological and Molecular studies on Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolated from chicken meat and its products in Kaliobia Governorate

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Bacteriology, Immunology and Mycology Dep., Fac. Vet. Med. Benha Univ.

2 Animal Health Research "Benhabranch"

3 veterinarian

Abstract

The study was performed on 175 random samples of fresh broiler chicken and chicken meat products viz: Chicken burger;
chicken luncheon; chicken kofta and chicken sausage (35 for each), collected from different shops at Benha city, kaliobia
government. The sample were examined for detection the prevalence of Staphylococci with special reference to S. aureus
and MRSA, beside the phenotypic characterization of the isolated S. aureus strains and detection of their virulence genes
in them. The bacteriological examination revealed the isolation of 98 Staphylococcus species including 41 S.aureus; 54
S. epidermidis and 3S. chromogenes. In addition, all 41 isolated S. aureus were coagulase positive strains, while, the other
isolated Staphylococcal strains (57) were coagulase negative ones. Moreover, the results of SET- RPLA test revealed that
5 S. aureus strains out of 10 randomly examined strains were enterotoxigenic and classified according to type of toxin
into (3A; 1 B & 1C). The sensitivity tests for the isolated S. aureus showed strains indicated high resistance to methicillin
followed by oxacillin; Nalidixic acid; Ampicillin; Amoxicillin; Cefotaxime and Tobramycin, respectively. Meanwhile,
they were highly sensitive to Gentamycin; Enrofloxacin; Norfloxacin; Lomefloxacin and Ciprofloxacin. PCR results
cleared that, femA; mecA and hlb virulence genes were detected in all 5 S. aureus studied strains. Meanwhile, ica A was
detected in 4studied strains; enterotoxin A (sea) was detected in 2 studied strains chicken meat and chicken kofta samples
only and leukocidin (pvl) virulence gene was detected in 1 studied strain of chicken meat sample

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