A survey of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from reptiles in central Taiwan

• Main Authors: Ling-Ling Weng, 翁令玲
• Other Authors: 董光中
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/35236644896371919328

碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 獸醫學系暨研究所 === 100 === It is becoming more and more popular these days to own reptiles as pets. However, reptiles are capable of carrying pathogens that are dangerous to humans, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can be transmitted directly or indirectly to humans through contact with an object contaminated by reptiles, handling of reptiles or through bite wounds. Therefore, knowledge of the bacterial flora of snakes and lizards constitutes important information for humans. The purpose of this survey is to determine: 1. the prevalence of P. aeruginosa in captive and wild reptiles. 2. the sensitivity of P. aeruginosa to meropenem, aztreonam, gentamicin, amikacin, cefotaxime, colistin and pipercillin-tazobactam. 3. the relatedness of the P. aeruginosa in the survey by using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Fifty-three out of 126 (42.0%) oral cavities samples collected from 82 snakes and 44 lizards yielded P. aeruginosa isolates. Also, 4 isolates obtained from separate necropsies of lizards and another isolate from a case of long-term diarrhea in a tortoise have been included in the survey. Furthermore, repeated oral swabs from 5 groups of reptiles were observed in order to understand how the change between phenotype and genotype of P. aeruginosa are related to antibiotic sensitivity. The results of antibiotic sensitivity tests showed that there was a low resistance to antibiotics, except in the cases of cefotaxime (33.3%) and gentamicin (18.5%). The results of PFGE revealed that the diversity of P. aeruginosa isolated from reptiles, makes it hard to classify isolates into clusters, and the similarity of the strains has no relation to living environments and animal species. Analyzing the repeated sampling groups revealed that the resistant P. aeruginosa variants might be selected in the oral cavities of reptiles by antimicrobial therapy itself. Furthermore, P. aeruginosa in the oral cavities of reptiles might be opportunistic pathogens, and any two strains of P. aeruginosa might be found in one animal simultaneously.