Antimicrobial resistance patterns of vancomycin-resistant Streptococcus equinus isolated from animal foods and epidemiological typing of resistant S. equinus by microbial uniprimer kit.

ABSTRACT

Raw milk samples, and cow and chicken intestines were tested to isolate vancomycin-resistant, gram-positive bacteria. From these samples, we isolated seven vancomycin-resistant Streptococcus equinus, two vancomycin-resistant viridans Streptococcus and two vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium. The MICs of several antibiotics, including vancomycin, against these strains were tested. Seven isolates of S. equinus showed high level resistance to vancomycin and teicoplanin (>100 microg/mL). The cell wall thickness of these strains was compared with that of the sensitive strain by TEM and no differences were obserbed between these strains. We compared the strains of vancomycin-resistant Streptococcus equinus using PCR with Microbial Uniprimer Kit. We concluded that it is necessary to combine other methods in order to cluster and identify all isolates of S. equinus.