PHENOTYPIC AND GENOTYPIC CHARACTERIZATION OF INTRAUTERINE PATHOGENIC ESCHERICHIA COLI WITH MULTI-DRUG RESISTANCE ISOLATED FROM COW UTERI WITH ENDOMETRITIS

Endometritis is a common postpartum disorder affecting cows, leading to financial losses. E. coli is among the most prominent clinically significant pathogens responsible for severe cases of bovine endometritis. 110 uterine swab samples from cows from several veterinary clinics at Kaliobia Governorate, Egypt (75 cows had subclinical endometritis and 35 cows had clinical endometritis) were used in order to isolate and identify pathogenic E. coli and to assess their susceptibility to antibiotics, in addition to their genotypic and phenotypic description of virulence and antimicrobial resistance genes. Our findings provided that endometrial E. coli was isolated from 54 examined uterine samples (49.1%). The identified E. coli was sensitive to norfloxacin, followed by gentamycin, ciprofloxacin, and co-trimoxazole, whereas remarkably resistant to oxacillin, ampicillin, tetracycline, cefotaxime, cephapirin, and streptomycin. All 54 isolated E.coli had Congo Red binding activity, and also all the 45 isolates showed phenotypic evidence of biofilm development. PCR results revealed that fimH was present in all five studied E. coli strains, and three of them contained papC virulence genes. Antimicrobial resistant genes blaTEM , sul1, tetA(A) were found in all studied strains, aadA1 in four strains and three strains exhibited the blaCTX-M gene. Therefore, according to the results, the recovered E. coli was endometrial pathogenic E. coli (EnPEC) with multiple antibiotic resistance. Furthermore, the virulence activities and phenotypic resistance to the antibiotics correlated strongly with the presence of the genes fimH, papC, blaTEM, blaCTX-M, aadA1, sul1, tetA(A) in these strains.