Fitness and dissemination of disinfectant-selected multiple-antibiotic-resistant (MAR) strains of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium in chickens.

Objectives: The aims of this study were to determine whether strains of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium which had acquired low-level multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) through repeated exposure to farm disinfectants were able to colonize and transmit between chicks as easily as the parent strain and, if such strains were less susceptible to fluoroquinolones, would high-level resistance be selected after fluoroquinolone treatment.

Methods: Two mutants were compared with the isogenic parent. In the first experiment, day-old chicks were co-infected with both the parent and a mutant to determine their relative fitness.

Modification of enrofloxacin treatment regimens for poultry experimentally infected with Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium DT104 to minimize selection of resistance.

We hypothesized that higher doses of fluoroquinolones for a shorter duration could maintain efficacy (as measured by reduction in bacterial count) while reducing selection in chickens of bacteria with reduced susceptibility. Chicks were infected with Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium DT104 and treated 1 week later with enrofloxacin at the recommended dose for 5 days (water dose adjusted to give 10 mg/kg of body weight of birds or equivalence, i.e.