title: Multilocus sequence typing analysis and antibiotic resistance of Clostridium difficile strains isolated from retail meat and humans in Belgium.
abstract: Clostridium difficile has been isolated from food animals and meat, specially ground pork and ground beef. The recovered isolates were closely related to C. difficile human strains, indicating that animals and food are possible transmission routes of human C. difficile infection. The main objective of this study was to characterize C. difficile isolates from retail meat and to compare with human isolates recovered from hospital patients in Belgium. Raw meat (beef and pork) was obtained from the retail trade. C. difficile was recovered from 2.3% of the beef samples and from 4.7% of the pork samples. A total of 4 different PCR-ribotypes were identified with a large percentage of types 078 and 014. Resistance to moxifloxacin and erythromycin was detected. The multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) analysis showed that meat and human isolates cluster in the same lineage. This study reveals the presence of toxigenic C. difficile in retail meat in Belgium with predominance PCR-ribotypes 078 and 014, which are among the four most prevalent ribotypes of C. difficile isolated from humans in Europe.
authors.affiliation: Food Science Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, B43bis, Sart-Tilman, 4000 Liège, Belgium. Electronic address: kriszsi@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rodriguez
authors.affiliation: Food Science Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, B43bis, Sart-Tilman, 4000 Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Taminiau
authors.affiliation: Microbiology Unit, Catholic University of Louvain, Avenue Hippocrate 5490, 1200 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Avesani
authors.affiliation: Microbiology Unit, Catholic University of Louvain, Avenue Hippocrate 5490, 1200 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Van Broeck
authors.affiliation: Microbiology Unit, Catholic University of Louvain, Avenue Hippocrate 5490, 1200 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Delmée
authors.affiliation: Food Science Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, B43bis, Sart-Tilman, 4000 Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Daube
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001530:Belgium; D002417:Cattle; D016360:Clostridioides difficile / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D003015:Clostridium Infections / Q000382:microbiology*; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis; D006801:Humans; D008460:Meat / Q000191:economics / Q000382:microbiology*; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing; D010802:Phylogeny; D013552:Swine
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents
keywords: Clostridium difficile; Multilocus sequence typing analysis; Retail meat