Ya Zheng,1 Qunli Yu,1 Ling Han,1 Xinyi Chen2 

1College of Food Science and Engineering, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, Gansu, 730070, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Biotechnology, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, People’s Republic of China

Correspondence: Qunli Yu, Tel +86-931-7631201, Email yuqunlihh@163.com

Purpose: The present study was designed to investigate the resistance determinants and virulence factors of 45 Trueperella pyogenes isolates from clinical bovine mastitis in Hexi Corridor of Gansu, China.
Methods: Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) was tested by E-test method. Gene of antimicrobial resistance, virulence integrase and integron gene cassettes were determined by PCR and DNA sequencing.
Results: The T. pyogenes isolates exhibited high resistance to streptomycin (88.9%) and tetracycline (64.4%), followed by erythromycin (15.6%) and gentamicin (13.3%). Resistance to streptomycin was most commonly encoded by aadA9 (88.9%); and to tetracycline, by tetW (64.4%). Importantly, all streptomycin-resistant isolates carried aadA9 alone or in combination with aadA1, aadA11 and strA-strB. Similarly, all tetracycline-resistant isolates harbored tetW alone or in combination with tetA33. Meanwhile, ermX was detected in 13.3% isolates, only one erythromycin-resistant isolate was not identified for this gene. Moreover, all T. pyogenes isolates carried class 1 integrons, and 17.8% of them contained gene cassettes, including arrays aadA1-aadB (4.4%), aad A24-dfrA1-ORF1 (2.2%) and aadA1 (2.2%). Furthermore, all tested isolates harbored virulent genes plo and fimA, followed by fimC (88.9%), fimE (86.6%) nanP (75.6%), nanH (40.0%), cbpA (35.6%) and fimG (6.7%).
Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first report of integron gene cassettes of T. pyogenes isolates from bovine mastitis cases in China. These findings are useful for developing the prevention and the virulence factors of T. pyogenes could be promising candidates for vaccine antigens for bovine mastitis caused by T. pyogenes in China.

Keywords: Trueperella pyogenes, resistance, integrons, gene cassette, bovine mastitis