Bacteriological and molecular studies on antibiotic resistant Escherichia coli isolated from meat and its products in Kaliobia, Egypt

The present study was performed on 175 random samples of fresh meat and meat products viz: Sausage, beef burger, luncheon and Kofta (35 for each), were collected from different shops at Kaliobia Governorate for detection the prevalence of E. coli in these samples, beside the phenotypic characterization and detection of some virulence and antibiotic resistant genes in them. Bacteriological examination of the collected samples resulted in, isolation of 11 (6.3%) isolates of E. coli from 175 samples and were isolated from, kofta, sausage samples (3= 8.6% for each) followed by fresh meat, beef burger samples (2=5.7% for each) and luncheon (1=2.9%). E. coli strains were serotyped as one O26:H11 from beef burger samples; four O55:H7 (one from each samples of fresh meat, luncheon, kofta and sausage); two O111:H4 (one from each samples fresh meat and kofta); one O119:H4 from sausage samples and three O125:H18 (one from each samples beef burger, kofta and sausage). The antibiotic sensitivity tests for the isolated revealed that, they were highly resistant for methicillin and oxacillin followed by amoxicillin; ampicillin; oxytetracycline; streptomycin; erythromycin; Nalidixic acid . Meanwhile, they were highly sensitive to enrofloxacin and gentamycin followed by norfloxacin; cefotaxime and ciprofloxacin. PCR results showed that, eaeA; blaTEM ; tetA(A) and aada1 genes were amplified in all four studied E. coli strains giving product of 248 bp.; 516 bp.; 576 bp. and 484 bp., respectively .