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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, January 1999, p. 266-269, Vol. 37, No. 1
0095-1137/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Increasing Incidence and Comparison of Nalidixic Acid-Resistant
Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica Serotype
Typhimurium Isolates from Humans and Animals
Christine
Heurtin-Le Corre,
Pierre-Yves
Donnio,
Monique
Perrin,
Marie-France
Travert, and
Jean-Loup
Avril*
UPRES 12-34 Microbiologie, Faculté de
Médecine, Université de Rennes I, 35033 Rennes, France
Received 15 June 1998/Returned for modification 22 July
1998/Accepted 29 September 1998
 |
ABSTRACT |
We determined the resistance to quinolone of 309 Salmonella
enterica subsp. enterica serotype Typhimurium strains
isolated from humans and animals (cattle, pigs, or poultry) in 1995 or 1996. Nalidixic acid resistance increased from 8.5% in 1995 to 18.6%
in 1996. The highest resistance levels correlated with a mutation at
Ser-83 (or Asp-82). All strains remained ciprofloxacin susceptible.
Human and animal isolates were compared by pulsed-field gel
electrophoresis, and the banding patterns of the human isolates most
closely matched those of the bovine isolates.
 |
TEXT |
Salmonella infection is
the most frequent food-borne gastrointestinal disease
transmitted from animals to humans (5).
Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serotype
Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) is one of the most common
serotypes both in animal and in human isolates (5).
Fluoroquinolones are drugs of choice for treatment of human invasive
salmonellosis, and some, namely, enrofloxacin, danofloxacin, and
marbofloxacin, are also specifically approved for therapeutic
veterinary use in France (4). The emergence of quinolone
resistance in S. Typhimurium is a matter of concern (2), especially in animals whose products are often
suspected sources of infection for human gastroenteritis. There have
been several reports of human ciprofloxacin treatment failure (11, 12, 17, 20). Genetic analysis indicated that quinolone resistance often resulted from a Ser-83
Phe-83 mutation in the gyrA
gene coding for the A subunit of the active DNA gyrase (9).
This mutation leads to the loss of a HinfI restriction
site (GANTC) present in the wild-type gyrA sequence
(7). On HinfI digestion, the codon 82- or
83-mutated quinolone genes and the quinolone-sensitive genes yield
376- and 277-bp HinfI fragments, respectively.
The purpose of the present study was to investigate a potential link
between human and animal S. Typhimurium isolates
collected in the same rural area. The isolates were compared by
pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) (18), and
quinolone-resistant strains were examined for the presence of a
mutation at gyrase A codon 82 or 83 by restriction fragment length
polymorphism (RFLP) analysis.
We studied a total of 309 S. Typhimurium strains
isolated from humans (53 patients) and animals (181 cows, 34 pigs, and
41 chickens) in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine (France) in 1995 to
1996. The animal strains were provided by the Laboratoire
Départemental Vétérinaire d'Ille-et-Vilaine.
Antimicro-bial susceptibility to nalidixic acid, pefloxacin, and
ciprofloxacin was assessed by the standardized disk diffusion
method, and determination of the MICs was performed
according to the recommendations of the Comité de
l'Antibiogramme de la Société Française de
Microbiologie (1). Statistical analysis of antimicrobial
susceptibility was performed by chi-square analysis.
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TABLE 1.
Susceptibilities to nalidixic acid of 309 S. Typhimurium isolates and number (percent) of strains
with decreased susceptibility according to their origin
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Preparation of whole cellular DNA for PFGE followed the protocol of
Allardet-Servent et al. (3). Slices of DNA containing agarose plugs were incubated for 4 h in the presence of 20 U of XbaI (13). DNA fragments were separated by PFGE
in a 1% agarose gel (Appligene) that was prepared and run in an 0.5×
Tris-borate-EDTA buffer on a contour hexagonal electric field
(Pharmaco-LKB; Gene Navigator). The pulse times were 5 to 15 s for
12 h and 15 to 40 s for 24 h. Electrophoresis was run at
150 V and at +8°C for 42 h. PFGE patterns were compared by
calculation of the Dice correlation coefficient with the Gel Compar
software (Applied Maths, BVAD, Kortrijk, Belgium) and were clustered
into a dendrogram by the unweighted pair group method with the
arithmetic average clustering technique.
HinfI RFLP analysis of the gyrase A gene (gyrA)
in bacterial DNA was described by Fisher et al. (7). The
following modification was made. The filter was hybridized to a
digoxigenin-labelled 347-bp fragment of the gyrA gene which
was prepared by PCR.
Of the 309 S. Typhimurium strains screened for
resistance to quinolones, 41 isolates (13.3%) were resistant to
nalidixic acid. They were found among cattle, pig, poultry, and human
isolates. Twenty-four strains (7.8%) had a decreased pefloxacin
susceptibility, but all were susceptible to ciprofloxacin. The
distribution of these isolates according to their origin is shown in
Table 1. Comparison of the total number of nalidixic acid-resistant
strains between the two collection years revealed a significant
increase in the percentage, from 8.5% in 1995 to 18.6% in 1996 (P < 0.01).
The 41 nalidixic acid-resistant and -susceptible strains of human and
animal origin were tested by PFGE (Fig. 1
and 2). Comparison of the banding
patterns of 30 S. Typhimurium strains (7 from
humans, 8 from cattle, 8 from pigs, and 7 from poultry) showed a close relationship among human and bovine isolates (cluster I) with a Dice
correlation coefficient of 90% (Fig. 3).
The comparison of pig and poultry isolates showed a Dice
coefficient of 87.5% (cluster II). These two clusters exhibited
different patterns (Dice coefficient = 81%). The comparison of
human and animal strains revealed clonal similarity between human and
bovine strains and clonal diversity between human and poultry or
pig strains. Resistant or susceptible strains cannot be distinguished
by PFGE.

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FIG. 1.
PFGE patterns of human S. Typhimurium
isolates. Lanes: 2, SH96-21; 3, SH96-23; 4, SH96-12; 5, SH96-11; 6, SH96-17; 8, SH96-14; 9, SH96-9; 10, strain Haddar; 11, SH96-7; 12, SH95-18; 1, 7, and 13, molecular size markers which were successively
larger concatamers of bacteriophage lambda DNA (Fluka-Biochemika).
Lanes with asterisks indicate nalidixic acid-resistant strains.
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FIG. 2.
PFGE patterns of bovine S. Typhimurium
isolates. Lanes: 2, SB95-67; 3, SB96-24; 4, SB96-25; 5, SB96-17; 6, SB96-6; 8, SB96-21; 9, SB95-24; 10, SB95-33; 11, SB96-15; 1, 7, and 12, molecular size markers which were successively larger concatamers of
bacteriophage lambda DNA (Fluka-Biochemika). Lanes with asterisks
indicate nalidixic acid-resistant strains.
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FIG. 3.
Dice similarity coefficients (percent). The dendrogram
was obtained from cluster analysis of XbaI macrorestriction
patterns of 30 S. Typhimurium isolates from humans
(SH), cattle (SB), poultry (SA), and pigs (SP) isolated between 1995 and 1996. Asterisks indicate nalidixic acid-strains. SH96-6 is strain
Haddar, SA96-3 is strain Bovis morbificans, and SP96-10 is
nontypeable.
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HinfI RFLP analysis of 36 nalidixic acid-resistant
S. Typhimurium strains revealed two different patterns
(Fig. 4): 19 strains had a 376-bp
HinfI gyrA fragment whereas the other 17 had a
277-bp fragment like the LT2 reference strain. The 19 strains with a mutation at codon 82 or 83 were highly resistant to nalidixic acid with
at least a 32-fold increase in MICs (MIC > 256 µg/ml). Many of
these (17 of 19) had a decreased pefloxacin susceptibility (MIC = 2 µg/ml). MICs of ciprofloxacin were also increased at 0.25 µg/ml.
Strains without a mutation at codon 82 or 83 were less resistant. Many
of them (10 of 17) had only a twofold increase in the MIC of nalidixic
acid (MIC = 16 µg/ml) and remained susceptible to
fluoroquinolones (Table 2). The reason
for their resistance maps elsewhere. Other mutations have been
described in the gyrA gene of Escherichia coli
(15, 16, 23) and Salmonella (9). The
mutation at codon 83 of subunit A of DNA gyrase greatly reduces the
binding of quinolone to the gyrase-DNA complex (22) and can
explain the link between this mutation and the MIC (14, 23).

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FIG. 4.
HinfI RFLP. Genomic DNA was digested with
HinfI and probed on Southern blots with a
digoxigenin-labelled 347-bp fragment of the gyrA gene.
Quinolone-sensitive strains produced a 277-bp HinfI
fragment, whereas nalidixic acid-resistant strains yielded a 376-bp
fragment, indicating the loss of the HinfI site at position
244. Lanes: 2, SB96-65; 3, SA96-9; 4, SB96-52; 5, SH96-14; 6, LT2; 7, SB95-25; 8, SA95-10; 9, SB95-6; 10, SB96-11; 11, SB96-21; 12, SP95-111;
1 and 13, Marker VI (Boehringer) molecular size markers (in base pairs)
labelled with digoxigenin. Lanes 5, 7, 8, 9, and 12 contain nalidixic
acid-resistant strains.
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TABLE 2.
Quinolone susceptibilities of 36 nalidixic acid-resistant
Salmonella Typhimurium strains according to the presence
of a mutation at Ser-83 (or possibly Asp-82)
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Quinolone-resistant strains have been reported in Asia and Europe. In
the United States, multidrug-resistant S. Typhimurium definitive type 104 (DT 104) has become a widespread pathogen (8), but the prevalence of quinolone resistance in
Salmonella remains low, although increasing from 0.1% in
1989 to 1991 to 0.5% in 1994 to 1995 (10). In Vietnam,
nalidixic-acid-resistant Salmonella serotype Typhi, first
described in 1993, is now associated with a treatment failure rate of
50% with short-course treatments which have proved remarkably
effective for treatment of multidrug-resistant typhoid fever
(21). In the United Kingdom, S. Typhimurium
DT 104 was the second most prevalent strain of Salmonella
(after Salmonella serotype Enteritidis PT4) isolated from
humans in 1996. The incidence of fluoroquinolone resistance of this
strain increased from 0% in 1994 to 7% in 1995 and 14% in 1996 (19). Emerging quinolone resistance in animal
S. Typhimurium is worrying, since these resistant
strains are responsible for human pathologies (6) and can
lead to treatment failure. Continued monitoring of
Salmonella for resistance to fluoroquinolone antimicrobial drugs is essential.
 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
We thank A. Lacourt and M. Bonnier from the Laboratoire
Vétérinaire Départemental d'Ille-et-Vilaine for
giving us the animal strains of S. Typhimurium.
 |
FOOTNOTES |
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: UPRES 12-34 Microbiologie, Faculté de Médecine, Université de
Rennes I, 35033 Rennes, France. Phone: (33) (2)99-33-69-52. Fax: (33)
(2)99-33-68-88. E-mail: Jean-Loup.Avril{at}univ-rennes1.fr.
 |
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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, January 1999, p. 266-269, Vol. 37, No. 1
0095-1137/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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