Occurrence of and in raw chicken and beef meat in northern Egypt and dissemination of their antibiotic resistance markers.

Background: The global incidence of foodborne infections and antibiotic resistance is recently increased and considered of public health concern. Currently, scarcely information is available on foodborne infections and ESBL associated with poultry and beef meat in Egypt.

Methods: In total, 180 chicken and beef meat samples as well as internal organs were collected from different districts in northern Egypt. The samples were investigated for the prevalence and antibiotic resistance of serovars and . All isolates were investigated for harbouring class 1 and class 2 integrons.

Results: Out of 180 investigated samples 15 (8.3%) and 21 (11.7%) were isolated and identified. isolates were typed as 9 Typhimurium (60.0%), 3 Paratyphi A (20.0%), 2 . Enteritidis (13.3%) and 1 Kentucky (6.7%). Twenty-one isolates were serotyped into O1, O18, O20, O78, O103, O119, O126, O145, O146 and O158. The phenotypic antibiotic resistance profiles of serovars to ampicillin, cefotaxime, cefpodoxime, trimethoprim/sulphamethoxazole and tetracycline were 86.7, 80.0, 60.0, 53.3 and 40.0%, respectively. Isolated were resistant to tetracycline (80.9%), ampicillin (71.4%), streptomycin, trimethoprim/sulphamethoxazole (61.9% for each) and cefotaxime (33.3%). The dissemination of genes coding for ESBL and AmpC β-lactamase in isolates included (73.3%), (73.3%) and (13.3%). In isolates , and were identified in 52.4, 42.9 and 14.3%, respectively. The plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance genes identified in were A (33.3%), B (20.0%) and S (6.7%) while A and B were detected in 33.3% of isolates. Class 1 integron was detected in 13.3% of and in 14.3% of isolates. Class 2 integron as well as the colistin resistance gene -1 was not found in any of or isolates.

Conclusions: This study showed high prevalence of and as foodborne pathogens in raw chicken and beef meat in Nile Delta, Egypt. The emergence of antimicrobial resistance in and isolates is of public health concern in Egypt. Molecular biological investigation elucidated the presence of genes associated with antibiotic resistance as well as class 1 integron in and .