The Prevalence of Escherichia coli Derived from Bovine Clinical Mastitis and Distribution of Resistance to Antimicrobials in Part of Jiangsu Province, China

Bovine mastitis is often taken as one of the most common diseases in dairy farms, which its pathophysiology leads to a reduction of milk production and its quality. The penetration of pathogenic bacteria into the mammary gland, through either a contagious or environmental approach, has been determined the way of infection. The mastitis derived bacteria have become a challenge in practice, since the increasing exposure of antimicrobial. In order to identify characteristics of the epidemiological regulation and drug resistance of the pathogenic bacteria of bovine mastitis in northern Jiangsu, 156 clinical mastitis milk samples were collected from 3 large-scale farms for the epidemiological investigation and analysis of the drug resistance of E. coli. The bacteria were positively isolated in a total of 143 milk samples. The results showed that 78 strains of E. coli were detected, with a prevalence rate of 26.99%, followed by 67 strains of K. pneumoniae, with a prevalence of 23.19%, and 38 strains of Staphylococcus, with a prevalence of spp. 13.15%. In addition, 78 strains of E. coli isolated from bovine mastitis were tested for susceptibility to 8 kinds of antibiotics. It was shown that gentamicin and tetracycline were the most effective against E. coli, with the susceptibility rate of 83.3%, followed by streptomycin and ciprofloxacin, with 73.1% and 71.8% respectively. However, beta-lactams including penicillin, cefothiophene, and amoxicillin showed serious resistance to E. coli isolates. There were 12 drug resistance genes detected by PCR, including beta-lactam (blaTEM, blaCTX-M, and blaSHV), aminoglycoside (armA and armB), tetracycline (tetA, tetB, and tetC), and quinolone (qnrS, qepA, oqxA, and oqxB) related genes. Notably, all E. coli isolates carried blaTEM gene (100%). The detection rate of blaCTX-M was 53.8%, followed by the detection of blaSHV (20.5%), armA (9.0%), tetA (26.9%), tetB (2.6%), tetC (20.5%), qnrS (29.5%), oqxA (37.2%) and oqxB (1.3%). The present study provides crucial information on the distribution of bovine mastitis derived bacterial pathogens in Jiangsu province, as well as highlighting the antimicrobial resistance which might help to improve the efficiency of antibiotics treatment on bovine mastitis.