Antibiotic resistance is one of the great challenges for modern healthcare. In Gram-negative bacteria, CTX-M-type extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBLs) have been rapidly spreading through Europe since the early 2000s. In Sweden, ESBL-producing Escherichia coli are still rare, but a 3-fold increase has been seen from 2004 to 2007. Enterobacteria and normal flora of wild animals, with or without antibiotic resistance traits, constitute a potential source of human infection and colonization. We studied wild birds with the aim to understand the environmental dissemination of antibiotic resistance and, focusing on clinically relevant resistance types, we made comparisons with human clinical samples. In this study, ESBL-producing human clinical isolates and isolates from juvenile black-headed gulls from Kalmar County hospital and the city of Kalmar, respectively, on the southeast coast of Sweden, were characterized and compared. Despite a low frequency of antibiotic resistance among the isolates from gulls, ESBL-producing E. coli isolates were found, two with bla(CTX-M-14) and one with bla(CTX-M-15). The same CTX-M types were dominant among human ESBL isolates. In addition, gull isolates were dispersed among the human samples in the PhenePlate (TM) clustering system, indicating that they neither differ from the human isolates nor form any separate clonal clustering. The finding of CTX-M-type ESBLs in E. coli isolated from black-headed gulls in Sweden, where 'background resistance' is low, is consistent with an ongoing environmental spread of these plasmid-borne resistance genes. The results indicate that a potential for transfer between the human population and environment exists even in countries with a low level of antibiotic resistance.

In the present study, the antimicrobial susceptibilities of 97 Escherichia coli isolates from birds, and 100 clinical isolates from blood cultures, were determined by disk diffusion. The wild-type distributions were defined by the normalized resistance interpretation method. It is shown that the avian and clinical inhibition zone diameter distributions of wild-type E. coli are indistinguishable.

Extended Spectrum beta-Lactamase (ESBL) producing Enterobacteriaceae started to appear in the 1980s, and have since emerged as some of the most significant hospital-acquired infections with Escherichia coli and Klebsiella being main players. More than 100 different ESBL types have been described, the most widespread being the CTX-M beta-lactamase enzymes (bla(CTX-M) genes). This study focuses on the zoonotic dissemination of ESBL bacteria, mainly CTX-M type, in the southern coastal region of France. We found that the level of general antibiotic resistance in single randomly selected E. coli isolates from wild Yellow-legged Gulls in France was high. Nearly half the isolates (47.1%) carried resistance to one or more antibiotics (in a panel of six antibiotics), and resistance to tetracycline, ampicillin and streptomycin was most widespread. In an ESBL selective screen, 9.4% of the gulls carried ESBL producing bacteria and notably, 6% of the gulls carried bacteria harboring CTX-M-1 group of ESBL enzymes, a recently introduced and yet the most common clinical CTX-M group in France. Multi locus sequence type and phylogenetic group designations were established for the ESBL isolates, revealing that birds and humans share E. coli populations. Several ESBL producing E. coli isolated from birds were identical to or clustered with isolates with human origin. Hence, wild birds pick up E. coli of human origin, and with human resistance traits, and may accordingly also act as an environmental reservoir and melting pot of bacterial resistance with a potential to re-infect human populations.

Faecal bacteria from 49 Gentoo penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula were identified by biochemical methods and sequencing, and tested for antibiotic susceptibility using agar dilution. Of the 42 Enterobacteriaceae isolates found, 39 belonged to the genus Edwardsiella. All isolates were susceptible to the 17 antibiotics tested. This implies that antibiotic selection pressure is a prerequisite to a high prevalence of antibiotic resistance, and in the absence of contact with human activities, antibiotic resistance in Enterobacteriaceae remains undetectable.