Overview of Some Selected Virulence and Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Campylobacter coli Isolated from Broiler Chickens

Campylobacter coli is the more common zoonotic pathogen and poultry are the foremost blamed source of contamination. Therefore, this study tested 50 chicken pooled samples from apparently healthy and diseased broilers suffered from diarrhea and mortality from various broiler farms in the governorate of Kafr El-Sheikh which revealed 11 Campylobacter coli isolates with a percentage of 22%. The antimicrobial resistance profile showed high resistance to ampicillin and streptomycin with a percentage of 100% followed by 90.9% for kanamycin and oxytetracycline then cefotaxime with a percentage of 72.7% while, susceptibility was observed for amikacin, tobramycin and ciprofloxacin with the percentage of 100%, 72.7%, and 54.5%, respectively. Genotypically testing the virulence and antibiotic resistance genes; Virulence genes showed the highest percentage was 100% for ciaB, flaA, and cdtC followed by virB11 (n=10/11) 90.9% while, dnaJ and pldA were the lowest detection (9.1%) and (18.2%), respectively. Furthermore, the antibiotic resistance genes; tetO and cmeB were harbored in all isolates. In conclusion, C. coli isolates present in the investigated poultry has a multi-drug resistance appearance in combination with a high prevalence of virulence genes which may cause public health problems.