PLoS ONE (Jan 2012)

Comparable high rates of extended-spectrum-beta-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli in birds of prey from Germany and Mongolia.

  • Sebastian Guenther,
  • Katja Aschenbrenner,
  • Ivonne Stamm,
  • Astrid Bethe,
  • Torsten Semmler,
  • Annegret Stubbe,
  • Michael Stubbe,
  • Nyamsuren Batsajkhan,
  • Youri Glupczynski,
  • Lothar H Wieler,
  • Christa Ewers

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0053039
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 12
p. e53039

Abstract

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Frequent contact with human waste and liquid manure from intensive livestock breeding, and the increased loads of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that result, are believed to be responsible for the high carriage rates of ESBL-producing E. coli found in birds of prey (raptors) in Central Europe. To test this hypothesis against the influence of avian migration, we initiated a comparative analysis of faecal samples from wild birds found in Saxony-Anhalt in Germany and the Gobi-Desert in Mongolia, regions of dissimilar human and livestock population characteristics and agricultural practices. We sampled a total of 281 wild birds, mostly raptors with primarily north-to-south migration routes. We determined antimicrobial resistance, focusing on ESBL production, and unravelled the phylogenetic and clonal relatedness of identified ESBL-producing E. coli isolates using multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) and macrorestriction analyses. Surprisingly, the overall carriage rates (approximately 5%) and the proportion of ESBL-producers among E. coli (Germany: 13.8%, Mongolia: 10.8%) were similar in both regions. Whereas bla(CTX-M-1) predominated among German isolates (100%), bla(CTX-M-9) was the most prevalent in Mongolian isolates (75%). We identified sequence types (STs) that are well known in human and veterinary clinical ESBL-producing E. coli (ST12, ST117, ST167, ST648) and observed clonal relatedness between a Mongolian avian ESBL-E. coli (ST167) and a clinical isolate of the same ST that originated in a hospitalised patient in Europe. Our data suggest the influence of avian migratory species in the transmission of ESBL-producing E. coli and challenge the prevailing assumption that reducing human influence alone invariably leads to lower rates of antimicrobial resistance.