Getting ahead of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in U.S. hogs.

ABSTRACT: Antibiotic-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, an opportunistic bacterial pathogen, have emerged in industrial livestock operations and agricultural settings. In the United States, there is limited access to industrial livestock operations and farm-level antibiotic use data. As a result, studies often rely on retail meat as a proxy for direct animal sampling. To move beyond this limitation and assess S. aureus colonization in hogs, we purchased the heads of recently-slaughtered hogs and compared S. aureus populations in those raised on industrial hog operations versus those raised without antibiotics. S. aureus isolates were analyzed for antibiotic resistance and putative genotypic markers of livestock adaptation. Although methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) was not detected in

SUBMITTER: Rhodes S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8119327 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature