Association between phage types and antimicrobial resistance among bovine Staphylococcus aureus from 10 countries
Introduction
Bovine mastitis is the most common production disease in dairy herds worldwide. It causes significant economic losses due to rejected milk, reduced milk quality, early culling, drug costs, veterinary expenses and increased labour costs for the farmer (Hoblet et al., 1991, Gruet et al., 2001), and it is the most frequent reason for antimicrobial use on dairy farms (Erskine, 2000). The most common cause of bovine mastitis in Denmark and other countries is Staphylococcus aureus (Myllys et al., 1994, Waage et al., 1999). The outcome for treatment of mastitis caused by S. aureus is variable and cure rates are not good, primarily due to the poor distribution of the drug in the inflamed udder and the occurrence of antimicrobial resistant staphylococci (Pyorala and Pyorala, 1994, Gruet et al., 2001). Penicillins have been the drugs of choice for treatment of bovine mastitis since its introduction in the late 1940s. However, soon after its introduction, penicillin resistant bovine S. aureus were recorded and in certain geographical areas the level of penicillin resistance was up to 70% through the 1960s (Wilson, 1961). An increase in occurrence of penicillin resistance has been observed over time in most countries, but major differences between countries can be observed (Aarestrup and Jensen, 1998). These geographical differences and fluctuations may reflect the occurrence of different clones of S. aureus within each country and might be related to the national policy for use of antimicrobial agents.
A large number of different phenotyping and genotyping techniques for characterisation of S. aureus are available (Schlichting et al., 1993, Fitzgerald et al., 1997, Fitzgerald et al., 2001, Lange et al., 1999). In previous studies good accordance between different genotyping techniques and phage typing in characterisation of bovine S. aureus has been found (Schlichting et al., 1993, Aarestrup et al., 1995b), and for large scale screening phage typing has previously proved valuable for both human and bovine strains (Larsen et al., 2000, Zadoks et al., 2000).
Several studies have characterised bovine S. aureus within countries and identified clustering or clonal relationships between isolates (Lange et al., 1999, Raimundo et al., 1999, Su et al., 2000, Tollersrud et al., 2000, Zadoks et al., 2000, Buzzola et al., 2001) but only a limited number of studies have compared bovine strains from different countries (Kapur et al., 1995, Fitzgerald et al., 1997, De Oliveira et al., 1999).
This study was conducted to investigate the diversity of phage types and associations between penicillin resistance and phage types among 815 S. aureus isolates from bovine mastitis in 10 countries.
Section snippets
Bacterial isolates
A total of 815 isolates of S. aureus sampled in 10 countries were received at the Danish Veterinary Institute in the beginning of the 1990s. All strains were isolated from independent cases of clinical and subclinical bovine mastitis with only one isolate per herd in the following countries: Denmark (105 isolates), England (100 isolates), Finland (96 isolates), Germany (103 isolates), Iceland (24 isolates), Ireland (42 isolates), Norway (98 isolates), Sweden (125 isolates), Switzerland (68
Occurrence of resistance among bovine S. aureus
The distribution of resistance is shown in Table 1. All 815 strains were susceptible to oxacillin, ceftiofur, ciprofloxacin, florfenicol, quinupristin/dalfopristin, tiamulin, trimethoprim+sulphamethoxazole, vancomycin, and virginiamycin. Only 1–2 strains were resistant to each of the following antimicrobials; avilamycin, gentamicin, kanamycin, and trimethoprim. Half (50.1%) of the strains were susceptible to all 21 antimicrobial agents tested for. Penicillin resistance was found in 32.4% of all
Discussion
The present study was conducted to investigate the association between antimicrobial resistance and phage types in an international collection of bovine S. aureus isolated from cases of clinical and subclinical mastitis.
Several studies worldwide have reported susceptibility to antimicrobial agents in S. aureus from bovine mastitis. In most of these studies, a frequent occurrence of penicillin resistance has been found, while there has only been a limited occurrence of resistance to other
Conclusion
In conclusion, this study showed that a large number of type of S. aureus can cause bovine mastitis, but that some types predominate. Penicillin resistance is widespread among S. aureus from bovine mastitis, but resistance to other antimicrobial agents is limited, and an association between phage group III and penicillin resistance was observed. These findings could suggest that the use of penicillin in the bovine environment has selected for specific types of S. aureus in countries with a high
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Danish Veterinary Institute, the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Denmark, and the Danish Dairy Board. Technical staffing in section for antimicrobial resistance and environmental microbiology at the Danish Veterinary Institute are thanked for technical assistance on MIC determinations and Jette Olsen, Statens Serum Institut, are thanked for technical assistance on phage typing.
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