title: Prevalence, diversity and characterization of enterococci from three coraciiform birds.
abstract: Coraciiform birds hoopoe (Upupa epops), common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) and European roller (Coracius garrulus) were examined for enterococci in their cloacae and uropygial glands. The enterococcal isolates were identified at the species level using several genomic and proteomic methods, screened for antibiotic susceptibility and genotyped by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Clonality of isolates from the common kingfisher was also assessed by multi-locus sequence typing (MLST). Using selective media, putative enterococcal isolates (n = 117) were recovered from 74% (32 out of a total of 43) of the bird samples and 114 isolates were confirmed as enterococci. Overall, among the total of 6 different species detected, Enterococcus faecalis was dominant (59%) in all three bird species. The second most frequently isolated species was Enterococcus casseliflavus (32%). PFGE revealed great diversity of strains from different bird species and anatomic location. Closely related strains were found only from nestlings from the same nest. No genes conferring resistance to vancomycin (vanA, vanB, vanC1 and van C2/C3) or erythromycin (erm A, ermB and mefA/E) were detected. MLST analysis and eBURST clustering revealed that sequence types of E. faecalis from the common kingfisher were identical to those of isolates found previously in water, chickens, and humans.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and Wildlife Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Hygiene and Ecology, University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno, Palackeho 1-3, 612 42, Brno, Czech Republic, p.frolkova@seznam.cz.
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Splichalova
authors.forename: Pavel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Svec
authors.forename: Anuradha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ghosh
authors.forename: Ludek
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zurek
authors.forename: Veronika
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Oravcova
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Radimersky
authors.forename: Mirko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bohus
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Literak
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D044822:Biodiversity; D001717:Birds / Q000382:microbiology*; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D016983:Enterococcus / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing; D010802:Phylogeny; D015995:Prevalence
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents