Genomic Analysis of Escherichia coli Longitudinally Isolated from Broiler Breeder Flocks after the Application of an Autogenous Vaccine

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Escherichia coli is the main bacterial cause of major economic losses and animal welfare issues in poultry production. In this study, we investigate the effect of an autogenous vaccine on E. coli strains longitudinally isolated from broiler breeder flocks on two farms. In total, 115 E. coli isolates were sequenced using Illumina technologies, and compared based on a single-nucleotide pol-ymorphism (SNP) analysis of the core-genome and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes they car-ried. The results showed that SNP-based phylogeny corresponds to a previous multilocus-sequence typing (MLST)-based phylogeny. Highly virulent sequence types (STs), including ST117-F, ST95-B2, ST131-B2 and ST390-B2, showed a higher level of homogeneity. On the other hand, less frequent STs, such as ST1485, ST3232, ST7013 and ST8573, were phylogenetically more distant and carried a higher number of antimicrobial resistance genes in most cases. In total, 25 antimicrobial genes were detected, of which the most prevalent were mdf(A) (100%), sitABCD (71.3%) and tet(A) (13.91%). The frequency of AMR genes showed a decreasing trend over time in both farms. The highest prevalence was detected in strains belonging to the B1 phylogenetic group, confirming the previous notion that commensal strains act as reservoirs and carry more resistance genes than pathogenic strains that are mostly associated with virulence genes.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
Artikelnummer377
TidsskriftMicroorganisms
Vol/bind10
Udgave nummer2
ISSN2076-2607
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2022

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
Funding: This study was partially supported by the University of Zagreb, Croatia, under Grant “Longitudinal epizootiological study of the virulence-associated genes by whole genome sequencing of the pathogens with the aim to improve biosafety measures and immunoprophylaxis programs on poultry farms”.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

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