Investigation for the presence of bacteria and antimicrobial resistance genes in sea snails ().

Introduction And Objective: The aims of this study were to search for the presence of bacteria in sea snails () by using culturomics and Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS), and the antibiotic resistance/susceptibility of the sea snails.

Material And Methods: The anti-microbial susceptibilities of Gram-negative bacteriawas assessed by the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method, the presence of the genes (mcr-1 to -5), the major carbapenemase and β-lactamase resistant genes in Gram-negative bacteria, using mPCR method and 16S rRNA sequence analysis of isolates.

Results: Bacterial growth accounted for 100% and 94.2% in the samples of intestine and meat, respectively, in the snails. The main organisms identified by MALDI-TOF MS were subsp. salmonicida at 33.7%, followed by at 9.6% (10/104) and at 7.7% in meat and intestine samples. and are intrinsic or chromosomally-mediated resistant against ampicillin. No genes (-1 to -5), the major carbapenemase and β-lactamase resistant genes were found. subsp. showed very low levofloxacin and meropenem resistance levels at 2.9%. When the sequence was searched in the Blast database, the genome of isolate showed high similarity with the sequences.

Conclusions: Conclusions. The findings obtained not only provide data about the proportion of bacteria in the gut and meat of the sea snails and their antibiotic resistance/susceptibility, but also show the absence of carbapenemase, colistin, and β-lactamase resistant genes among bacterial isolates from sea snail gut microbes.