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Disease episodes of fish caused by Aeromonas species are moved to the top list of limiting problems worldwide. The present study was planned to verify the in vitro antibacterial activities as well as the in vivo potential values of clove oil and ciprofloxacin against Aeromonas sobria in African catfish (Clarias gariepinus). The in vitro phenotypic virulence activities and the successful amplification of aerolysin and hemolysin genes in the precisely identified A. sobria strain were predictive for its virulence. In the in vivo assay, virulence of A. sobria strain was fully demonstrated based on constituent mRNA expression profile of tested virulence genes and typical septicemia associated with high mortalities of infected fish. Apparent lower mortality rates were correlated well with both decrescent bacterial burden and significant down-regulated transcripts of representative genes in the treated groups with clove oil, followed by ciprofloxacin as a prophylactic use for 15 days (P < 0.0001); however, the essential oil apart from ciprofloxacin significantly enhanced different hematological parameters (P < 0.05). In addition, administration of antibiotic may be considered as a pronounced stress factor in the fish even when it used in the prophylactic dose. In conclusion, medicinal plants-derived essential oils provide a virtually safer alternative to chemotherapeutics on fish, consumers and ecosystems.

Antimicrobial resistance of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) poses a serious problem for clinicians worldwide. The present study attempted to evaluate the susceptibility patterns of MRSA to various antimicrobials and the prevalence of inducible clindamycin resistance as well as the relevant antibiotic and antiseptic resistance genes among these isolates. Totally, 40 MRSA isolates were recovered from examined milk and meat product samples (18.60%). Multi-drug resistance (MDR) was remarkably observed among 85% of these isolates. There was a good correlation between phenotypic determination of methicillin, amoxicillin/clavulinic acid and tetracycline resistances and PCR detections of mecA, blaZ and tet(K) genes, respectively, but norA gene was not detected in the four ciprofloxacin resistant isolates. Although, 55% of MRSA expressed resistance to benzalkonium chloride (BC), neither qacA/B nor smr gene was detected. Of 20 isolates exhibiting erythromycin- clindamycin discordant resistance pattern, 8 displayed positive double disk diffusion (D-zone) test denoting inducible macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B (MLSB) resistance phenotype with the inducibly expressed erm(A) and erm(C) genes in 87.5% of these isolates. Besides, the remaining 12 isolates showed MS phenotype (resistant to macrolides and type B streptogramins only) with a variety of erm(A), mph(C), msr(A) or a combination of these genes including erm(C). Finally, the constitutive MLSB phenotype with the constitutive expression of erm(A), erm(B) and erm(C) genes was comprised in 2 isolates with higher minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values for erythromycin (512 and 1024 µg/ml) and clindamycin (16 and 32 µg/ml). These findings suggested the importance of monitoring the evolution of MRSA resistance.

The present study was designed to elucidate the phenotypic and genotypic characterization of S. aureus isolates in Egypt. The antibiotic susceptibility pattern of 133 identified S. aureus isolates revealed that over 70% of the isolates were multi-drug resistant (MDR). Fifty MDR isolates were characterized using antibiotyping and different molecular typing methods. Amplification of mecA gene confirmed 30 strains as methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and 20 as methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA). Generally, 22 MRSA (73.33%) and ten MSSA (50%) harbored Panton-Valentine leukocidin (pvl) gene with no statistically significant difference (p=0.093). Staphylococcal cassette chromosome (SCC) mec typing revealed that 48% of the typeable MRSA isolates possessed SCCmec type IV. SCCmec and antimicrobial susceptibility typing signified the presence of community-acquired (CA)-MRSA in Egypt. Surprisingly, all isolates of SCCmec types I, II and III and 50% of both MRSA isolates of SCCmec types IV and V possessed pvl gene. It was clear that staphylococcal protein A (spa) and coagulase (coa) typing discriminated the isolates into eight different groups, whilst polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) of coagulase gene yielded ten distinct RFLP banding patterns. This study presented the first baseline information on the characterization of MRSA and MSSA in Egypt.