BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Pharmacology and Toxicology
This article is part of the Research TopicInsights in Veterinary Pharmacology and Toxicology: 2024View all 12 articles
Research of Antimicrobial resistance and its Associated Genes distribution in Escherichia coli from Diarrheic Calves in the Ulagai Region of China
Provisionally accepted
Gao Wei1
Zhang xin ying1
Miao Sun1Han dong xu1Wang jia ning1Li Yue1Ren San2Yu li dong3Gui Fang3Guo Lei3Nima la xi3Liu Kai1*
Wang Zi1*- 1College of Animal Science and Technology, Inner Mongolia Minzu University, Tongliao, Inner Mongolia, China., Tongliao, China
- 2Tongliao Agricultural and Animal Product Quality Safety Center, Tongliao, China, Tongliao, China
- 3Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center of Wulagai Administrative Region, Xilingol League, 11 Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Tongliao, China
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As a conditional pathogenic bacterium, Escherichia coli is a major contributor to infect calf diarrhea. It has attracted extensive attention due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and pathogenicity.To elucidate the AMR profiles and resistance-related genes in E. coli isolated from calf diarrhea samples in the Ulagai region E. coli was isolated and identified from samples of calf feces using E. coli chromogenic medium, Gram staining, and 16S rRNA sequencing. The antimicrobial susceptibility was tested using the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. Resistance genes were analyzed using PCR. Additionally, strains showing severe multidrug resistance were selected for whole-genome sequencing.Multidrug resistance was observed in all 50 isolated E. coli strains. They were resistant to bacitracin, and 82% were resistant to gentamicin. Strains 24, 27, 36, and 15 exhibited particularly high levels of resistance. Analysis of resistance-related genes detected over 90% resistance associated with TEM-1 and tetR and over 80% for CTXM-55, QacH, strB, and floR, sul2 was observed in 100% of the isolates. Four strains indicated genome sizes of 5,144,828bp, 4,798,224bp, 4,813,249bp, and 5,450,201 bp, respectively, harboring 5, 3, 6, and 2 plasmids. Prediction of antibiotic resistance genes revealed that the isolates contained numerous resistance genes, strain 27 carried the highest number(148 in total). All strains isolated from diarrheic calves exhibited multidrug resistance and carried numerous resistance genes. Furthermore, the observation of abundant mobile genetic elements in the strains increases the risk of horizontal gene transfer of resistance genes, indicating the severity of issues faced by clinical prevention and control measures.
Keywords: Escherichia coli, Calf diarrhea, Gut Microbiota, Resistance genes, Whole-genomesequencing
Received: 14 Aug 2025; Accepted: 10 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wei, ying, Sun, xu, ning, Yue, San, dong, Fang, Lei, xi, Kai and Zi. 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:
Liu Kai, liukai721026@163.com
Wang Zi, wangzixiaoxu@163.com
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