Class 1 Integrons and the Antibiotic Resistance Profile of Salmonella Infantis Strains from Broiler Chickens

Salmonella infections are one of the most important diseases and cause economic problems in poultry. The zoonotic feature of the agent and leading to food-borne infections are also important in public health issues. Increasing antibiotic resistance causes difficulties of controlling Salmonella infections, in recent years. Among non-typhoidal Salmonella serotypes the rate of Salmonella Infantis are increasing in Turkey. With this increase, it is important to know the antimicrobial resistance patterns of Salmonella Infantis strains as seen in other Salmonella serotypes. In this study, we aimed to investigate Salmonella Infantis strains which were isolated from feces of healthy broiler chickens for the presence of antibiotic resistance and frequency of Class 1 integrons that is responsible for the transfer of antibiotic resistance as plasmids, transposons. For this purpose a total of 150 S. Infantis strains which were isolated and identified according to the ISO 6579-2002 and Kauffmann-White serotyping scheme were used. Antimicrobial resistance of the strains was determined by the disc diffusion method following to the recommendations of CLSI 2011 standard protocol and also Class 1 integrons were investigated by PCR. According to the results, high rate of multi-drug antibiotic resistance (89.3%), high rate of sensitivity (100%) to cefotaxime, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, ceftazidime were observed and also Class 1 integrons were determined in all isolates. In conclusion, the presence of Class 1 integron is all strains of Salmonella Infantis showed the potential importance of these strains as recipient for antibiotic resistance.