NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Drug-resistant Escherichia coli causing urinary tract infection (UTI) in humans may sometimes originate in animals, U.S. researchers report in the January 15th issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Multiple outbreaks of UTI caused by trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMZ) resistant E. coli belonging to a single clonal group (CgA) suggest that the infections were spread by widely distributed contaminated food products, explain senior author Dr. Lee W. Riley, at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues.
To explore this possibility, the team examined 495 nonhuman-associated E. coli isolates of the same serogroups as those encountered among human-associated CgA strains, isolated in the U.S. between 1965 and 2002.
Analysis by enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC2) polymerase chain reaction testing showed that 128 (26%) possessed an electrophoretic pattern indistinguishable from that of the human prototype CgA strain, the investigators report. Fourteen of these isolates, collected between 1987 and 2002, were resistant to TMP-SMZ.
Furthermore, 15 of 19 strains isolated after 1988, typed by random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis, showed them to be indistinguishable from a human-associated CgA reference strain, while the remaining four had “clearly related” patterns.
‘In addition to recognized drug-resistant foodborne enteric diseases, drug-resistant UTI may have to be included among drug-resistant infectious diseases spread via food of animal origin,” Dr. Riley’s group writes.
“Demonstration of a link between animal colonization with multidrug-resistant uropathogens and human UTI would have major public health implications,” Drs. Thomas M. Hooton, at the University of Washington, and Mansour Samadpour, at the Institute for Environmental Health, both in Seattle, write in an accompanying commentary.
These findings “add fire to the debate about the use of antibiotics in animals and the subsequent impact on resistance in human disease,” they add.
Source: Clin Infect Dis 2005;40:251-259. [ Google search on this article ]
MeSH Headings:Biological Phenomena: Biological Phenomena, Cell Phenomena, and Immunity: Biological Sciences: Biology: Drug Resistance, Microbial: Enterobacteriaceae Infections: Escherichia coli Infections: Genetics: Genetics, Microbial: Microbiologic Phenomena: Pharmacogenetics: Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections: Biological SciencesCopyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
