Prevalence of antibiotic resistant enterobacteriaceae in foods / Enas Eid Hamed Mahmoud ; Supervised Ensaf Emam Dawoud , Ferial Mohamed Rashad , Hagag Salah Zein

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Agriculture - Department of Microbiology

Nowadays, the emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) strains of Enterobacteriaceae has become a serious threat to public health worldwide. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to assess the prevalence and distribution of antibiotic resistant Enterobacteriaceae in foods as well as to seek about means for combating the occurrence of such bacteria. Thus, firstly, the prevalence of ampicillin-resistant (AMPr) Enterobacteriaceae isolates recovered from different ready-to-eat food samples (luncheon, cheese and vegetable salad) as well as identification of such AMPr isolates and assessment of antimicrobial resistance profiles of AMPr Enterobacteriaceae isolates were performed. Secondly, the determination of the proportion of isolates exhibiting the extended spectra beta lactamase (ESBL) phenotype among food isolates and testing the transferability of antibiotic resistant traits to other bacteria were conducted. Finally, the capability of different strains of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and vinegar as natural preservative/sanitizer means for combating such bacteria were assessed. The obtained results revealed that all the tested samples contained similar microbial load either total or AMPr. Enterobacteriaceae isolates (194) out of 298 AMPr bacterial isolates were identified in 21 genera. All the Enterobacteriaceae isolates exhibited multi-drug resistance (MDR) phenotype to at least 5 antibiotics whereas 91.75 and 18% of these isolates were resistant to the 3rd generation of cephalosporin antibiotic (cefotaxime) and extended spectrum beta lactamase (ESBL) producers, respectively

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