Comparative Genetic Characterization of Pathogenic Escherichia coli Isolated from Patients and Swine Suffering from Diarrhea in Korea

• Published in: Animals (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 7; p. 1154
• Main Authors: Do, Kyung-Hyo, Seo, Kwangwon, Jung, Myunghwan, Lee, Woo-Kon, Lee, Wan-Kyu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 24.03.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Antimicrobial agents; Antimicrobial resistance; Ciprofloxacin; Contamination; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Diarrhea; Disease prevention; DNA; Drug resistance; E coli; Escherichia coli; Fluoroquinolones; Norfloxacin; Patients; Phylogeny; Resistance factors; Shiga toxin; Statistical analysis; Swine; Toxins; Virulence; Virulence factors; United States > US; South Korea; swine; multilocus sequence typing; antimicrobial resistance; Escherichia coli; patients; diarrhea; virulence factors
• ISSN: 2076-2615; 2076-2615
• DOI: 10.3390/ani13071154

The aim of this study was to compare the virulence factors and antimicrobial resistance of the most common pathogenic strains in swine and patients with diarrhea in Korea. We examined virulence genes and antimicrobial susceptibility in 85 and 61 strains isolated from swine and patients with diarrhea, respectively. The most prevalent pathogen in swine was enterotoxigenic (ETEC) (47.1%), followed by Shiga toxin-producing (STEC) (32.9%). Similarly, the majority of the patient isolates (50.8%) were proven to be STEC, the most common pathotype, followed by ETEC (23.0%). We found that swine isolates had significantly higher resistance than patient isolates, especially to fluoroquinolones (ciprofloxacin: 37.5% and 16.1%; norfloxacin: 29.7% and 16.1%, respectively). Additionally, sequence type (ST) 100 (swine: 21; patients: 4), ST 1 (swine: 21, patients: 2), ST 10 (swine: 8; patients: 6), ST 641 (swine: 3, patients: 2), and ST 88 (swine: 2, patients: 11) were detected in both swine and humans. In addition, we confirmed that isolates from swine and patients had similar virulence traits and were phylogenetically similar. According to these findings, swine and humans are susceptible to cross infection and the transfer of antimicrobial resistance.