Distribution and prevalence of chloramphenicol-resistance gene in escherichia coli isolated from aquaculture and other enviroment

• Main Author: Ng, Kok Hua
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, UNIMAS 2013
• Subjects: R Medicine (General); RE Ophthalmology
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/4158/3/Ng%20Kok%20Hua%20ft.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/4158/
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

To date, aquaculture has become one of the fastest growing food production systems in the world. In Malaysia, the aquaculture industry, particularly the production of freshwater aquaculture fish, is growing very quickly. Nevertheless, the illegal use of banned antimicrobial agents, such as chloramphenicol in aquaculture has become a major concern regarding the safety of consumers and the development of drug-resistant strains in bacteria. Driven by the factor stated above, the main intention of this study were to detect the chloramphenicol-resistance genes in Escherichia coli isolated from both aquaculture and other environmental water, and to determine the prevalence and distribution of the chloramphenicol-resistance genes. E. coli isolated from aquaculture was grown on EMB agar and screened for antibiotic resistance by antibiotic susceptibility test using chloramphenicol disks. The respective chloramphenicol-resistance gene in the isolates was detected by multiplex PCR with the primers C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, C-R for cat I, cat II, cat III, and cat IV, respectively, in a single reaction mixture. From all the 27 isolates of E. coli isolated, 19 were resistant to chloramphenicol. All the 19 isolates indicated the presence of cat II gene, 13 isolates indicated the presence of cat I gene, 10 isolates indicated the presence of cat III gene, and 6 isolates indicated the presence of cat IV gene.