Prevalence of antimicrobial resistance and integrons in Escherichia coli isolated from feces of dairy goats in Nong Chok, Bangkok, Thailand

Antimicrobial resistance is recognized as a growing public health problem. Antimicrobial use and misuse in animal farms have boosted antimicrobial resistance among bacteria in the animal habitat and may be transferred to humans. Therefore, this study was to determine the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance, integrons and their association in Escherichia coli isolated from dairy goats in Nong Chok, Bangkok. Ninety-four fecal samples from dairy goats were collected by rectal swab between April 2019 and May 2019. Of 180 E. coli isolates, 141 were resistant to at least one antimicrobial agent by disc diffusion method. The most frequent E. coli resistance was to streptomycin 65.6% (118/180), followed by tetracycline 30.0% (54/180), kanamycin 21.7% (39/180), and sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim 21.7% (39/180). Furthermore, the percentage of multidrug resistant (MDR) E. coli was 23.9% (43/180). Thirty-nine antimicrobial resistance profiles were found in this study and the most common resistance profiles were STR 23.3% (42/180), STR-TET-SXT 10.0% (18/180) and KAN-STR 6.7% (12/180). All of the 180 E. coli isolates were detected class 1 and 2 integrons by multiplex PCR. The results revealed 22.2% (40/180) were positive for integrons including resistant isolates 92.5% (37/40) and susceptible 7.5% (3/40). Moreover, E. coli isolates resistant to streptomycin, tetracycline, enrofloxacin and sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim were significantly associated with the presence of integrons (P < 0.05). The data of this study indicated that dairy goats in farms could be a reservoir and possible spread of resistant isolates to farmers and consumers via animals and their products.