ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Antimicrobials, Resistance and Chemotherapy
This article is part of the Research TopicAntimicrobial Resistance: Tracking and Tackling in the Food ChainView all 8 articles
Genomic characterization of Staphylococcus aureus from small ruminant-mastitis in Sardinia, Italy
Provisionally accepted
Amira Awad Moawad1,2*
Simone Dore3Stefano Lollai3
Hosny El-Adawy1,2
Hanka Brangsch1
Stefan Monecke4
Ralf Ehricht4
Sascha Braun4
Heinrich Neubauer1
Herbert Tomaso1- 1Institut für bakterielle Infektionen und Zoonosen, Friedrich Loeffler Institut, Jena, Germany
- 2Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut Bundesforschungsinstitut fur Tiergesundheit Institut fur bakterielle Infektionen und Zoonosen, Jena, Germany
- 3Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Sardegna G Pegreffi Sanita Animale, Sassari, Italy
- 4Leibniz-Institut fur Photonische Technologien eV, Jena, Germany
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Staphylococcal mastitis is a common disease of small ruminants causing major economic losses. The problem is particularly significant in the rural areas of the Mediterranean region, where almost two thirds of the global sheep and a quarter of the global goat milk are produced.This study aimed to gain insight into the genotypes, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profiles and virulence factors of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from clinical mastitis in small ruminants' farms from different 25 dairy herds in six different provinces in Sardinia, Italy between December 2021 and May 2022. Thirty-two S. aureus were phenotypically identified and confirmed by real-time PCR. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) was conducted and the sequence data were analysed to reveal the genetic diversity, AMR markers and virulence genes to draw a conclusion for a current situation of small ruminants' clinical mastitis in dairy herds in the region and the potential public health risk. Furthermore, the phylogenetic relations between S. aureus strains within one farm and from various farms was analysed.All isolates proved to be phenotypically Methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA), and noneIn conclusion, this study showed a considerable genetic diversity of S. aureus isolated from sheep and goat mastitis in Sardinia, Italy, and the prominent sensitivity to most of antimicrobial agents relevant for mastitis treatment. These findings inform about the local mastitis control strategies and highlight a low immediate public health risk from antimicrobial resistance in this setting.
Keywords: Dairy sheep and goats, Staphylococcus aureus, Clinical mastitis, Sardinia, WGS, MSSA
Received: 07 Jul 2025; Accepted: 24 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Moawad, Dore, Lollai, El-Adawy, Brangsch, Monecke, Ehricht, Braun, Neubauer and Tomaso. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Amira Awad Moawad, amira.moawad@fli.de
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.