Hojjat Kouchakkhani
1, Parvin Dehghan
2*, Mir-hassan Moosavy
3, Bahareh Sarmadi
41 Student Research Center, Faculty of Nutrition and Food Science, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
2 Nutrition Research Center, Department Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Nutrition and Food Science, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
3 Department of Food Hygiene, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Tabriz University, Tabriz, Iran
4 Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia
Abstract
Background: Escherichia coli O157:H7 is one of the high risk bacteria, found in foods, especially
in ready-to-eat products, which causes many disorders such as hemorrhagic
colitis, hemolytic uremic syndrome and dysentery in humans. The objective of
this study was to determine the contamination of Escherichia coli
O157:H7 and antibiotic resistance in ready-to-eat vegetable salads.
Methods: In this study, 6o ready-to-eat salad vegetable samples
were collected from restaurants for determining their isolated Escherichia
coli O157:H7 and their antibiotic resistance by SYBR Green I Based
real-time PCR and disc diffusion method, respectively.
Results: Out of the 60 samples, 10 samples (16.66%) were
positive for Escherichia coli O157:H7. All identified isolates
were resistant to more than five antibiotics. A high rate of resistance was
observed to the clindamycin, vancomycin, erythromycin, penicillin, amoxicillin
and cephalothin (100%), cefixime (40%), amikacin (20%), cefotaxime and
cetracycline (10%).
Conclusion: The
presence of toxigenic Escherichia coli O157:H7 in ready-to-eat vegetable
salads can be considered a public health threat. Providing the useful
strategies for improving food safety and inspection services is necessary.
Further studies are suggested to identify specific ready-to-eat vegetable
salads-related hazards.