This work aimed to determine the presence of Arcobacter spp. in shellfish and to determine its susceptibility to quinolones. One hundred samples (41 mussels, 37 clams, and 22 cockles) were purchased from different local retail shops in Valencia, Spain, from September 2013 to June 2015. All samples were analyzed simultaneously by culture, after an enrichment step, and by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), directly and after enrichment. The susceptibility to levofloxacin and ciprofloxacin of the isolates was tested using the disk-diffusion test and E-test strips method. To clarify the mechanism of quinolone resistance, a fragment of the quinolone resistance-determining region of the gyrA gene was sequenced. Thirty-seven samples were positive and 49 isolates were obtained by culture, and Arcobacter spp. DNA was detected in 32% of the samples by PCR. However, after 48-h enrichment, the number of positive samples increased, and 68 of the 100 samples yielded the specific Arcobacter spp. PCR product. In addition, 49 isolates were identified by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism. The most commonly found species was Arcobacter butzleri (25 isolates, 51.03%) followed by Arcobacter cryaerophilus (19 isolates, 38.77%) and Arcobacter defluvii (5 isolates, 10.20%). Only three isolates of A. butzleri were resistant to both antibiotics. A mutation C to T transition in the position 254 of the gyrA gene was present in the three resistant isolates. This study confirms that pathogenic arcobacters are frequently found in edible shellfish samples. Moreover, this is the first time that A. butzleri and A. cryaerophilus have been isolated from cockles.
Keywords: Arcobacter; PCR-RFLP; gyrA; shellfish.