Resistance and multi-resistance study of strains isolated from fish digestive contents from the RASPA Project

Abstract

Sewage contamination of the marine environment is a significant environmental problem that has serious repercussions on public health. The consumption of contaminated marine products can cause gastrointestinal diseases due to bacteria, viruses and parasites present in sewage, intoxication by heavy metals such as mercury, lead and cadmium, which cause neurological and renal damage, and antimicrobial resistance due to the presence of these substances in the water, contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. According to the WHO, the problem of antimicrobials has been classified since 2020 as an urgent health problem of global dimension. Given the importance that this issue has taken in recent years, we have proposed to carry out a study of resistance and multi-resistance in strains from the intestinal contents of deep-sea fish from the macaronesian area and to relate them to their animal and geographical origin. For this study we used 47 strains from the digestive content of fish from the RASPA project, which were stored in the laboratory of Infectious Diseases of the ULPGC. For the detection of antimicrobial resistance, commercial Minimum Inhibitory Concentration tests were performed. The results confirmed that the Gram-negative bacilli included in this study showed resistance to many drugs, mainly amoxicillinclavulanic acid (85.11%) and ampicillin (74.47%), as well as to first-generation cephalosporins, which showed a range of resistance from 89.36% to 91.49%. In addition, 4 multidrug-resistance patterns were detected in this study that included 3, 4 and 5 different antibiotic groups. The resistance and multi-resistance patterns detected in this work could be correlated with the sanitary status of the country of origin, as well as with the antibiotics most used in each of them. According to the results obtained, it is necessary to establish continuous monitoring and surveillance programs to detect and control the presence of pathogenic bacteria resistant to antimicrobials in fish intended for human consumption.