Prevalence of Tetracycline-Resistant Campylobacter in Organic Broilers During a Production Cycle

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2008-01-01
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Luangtongkum, Taradon
Morishita, Teresa
Martin, Lori
Choi, Irene
Sahin, Orhan
Zhang, Qijing
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Zhang, Qijing
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Veterinary Microbiology and Preventive Medicine
Our faculty promote the understanding of causes of infectious disease in animals and the mechanisms by which diseases develop at the organismal, cellular and molecular levels. Veterinary microbiology also includes research on the interaction of pathogenic and symbiotic microbes with their hosts and the host response to infection.
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Abstract

Tetracycline (tet) resistance in Campylobacter isolated from organically raised broilers was investigated in this study. Two hundred forty-five samples from an organic broiler farm were collected weekly from the first week to the end of the production cycle, and they were cultured for thermophilic Campylobacter. Tetracycline resistance of these Campylobacter isolates was identified by the agar dilution method, whereas DNA fingerprinting profiles of tet-susceptible and tet-resistant strains were determined by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). None of the Campylobacter isolates from the third and the fourth week of the production period were resistant to tetracycline, whereas 66.7% of the isolates from the fifth week were resistant to this antibiotic. Although the prevalence of tetracycline resistance reached 100.0% during the sixth and seventh week, less than 34.0% of the isolates from the 10th week were resistant to this antimicrobial agent. In addition, only 13.8% of Campylobacter isolates from the intestinal tracts of these organically raised broilers were resistant to tetracycline. The presence of the tet(O) gene was detected in 98.9% of tet-resistant Campylobacter isolates, and tet-susceptible and tet-resistant Campylobacter strains showed distinct PFGE genotypes. The results suggest that the Campylobacter strains isolated from the early stage of the production were susceptible to tetracycline, but they were subsequently displaced by tet-resistant Campylobacter.

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This article is published as Luangtongkum, Taradon, Teresa Y. Morishita, Lori Martin, Irene Choi, Orhan Sahin, and Qijing Zhang. "Prevalence of tetracycline-resistant Campylobacter in organic broilers during a production cycle." Avian diseases 52, no. 3 (2008): 487-490. doi: 10.1637/8181-112807-ResNote.1. Posted with permission.

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Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 2008
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