Processed ready-to-eat (RTE) foods sold in Yenagoa Nigeria were colonized by diarrheagenic Escherichia coli which constitute a probable hazard to human health

Abeni Beshiru; Anthony I Okoh; Etinosa O Igbinosa

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0266059

Processed ready-to-eat (RTE) foods sold in Yenagoa Nigeria were colonized by diarrheagenic Escherichia coli which constitute a probable hazard to human health

PLoS One. 2022 Apr 5;17(4):e0266059. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266059. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Abeni Beshiru^{1

2}, Anthony I Okoh^{3

4}, Etinosa O Igbinosa^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Applied Microbial Processes & Environmental Health Research Group, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria.
² Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), Wallenberg Research Centre at Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
³ Department of Environmental Health Sciences, College of Health Sciences, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
⁴ SAMRC Microbial Water Quality Monitoring Centre, University of Fort Hare, Alice, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.

Abstract

The study aimed to recover diarrheagenic Escherichia coli strains from processed ready-to-eat (RTE) foods in Yenagoa, Nigeria and characterize them using culture-based and molecular methods. Three hundred RTE food samples were collected randomly from different food outlets between February 2021 and August 2021 and assessed for the occurrence of E. coli using standard bacteriological procedures. The virulence factor formation and antibiotic susceptibility profile of the isolates was carried out using standard microbiological procedures. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to confirm the identity of the isolates via specific primers and further used to assay the diarrheagenic determinants of the E. coli isolates. The prevalence of E. coli positive samples based on the proliferation of E. coli on Chromocult coliform agar forming purple to violet colonies was 80(26.7%). The population density of E. coli from the RTE foods ranged from 0-4.3 × 104 ± 1.47 CFU/g. The recovered E. coli isolates (n = 62) were resistant to antibiotics in different proportions such as ampicillin 62(100%), aztreonam 47(75.81%) and chloramphenicol 43(69.35%). All the recovered E. coli isolates were resistant to ≥ 2 antibiotics. The multiple antibiotic-resistant index (MARI) ranged from 0.13-0.94 with 47(75.8%) of isolates having MARI >2. A total of 48(77.4%) of the isolates were multidrug-resistant (MDR). The proportion of extracellular virulence factor formation is as follows: protease 12(19.35%), curli 39(62.9%), cellulose 21(33.89%), ornithine decarboxylase 19(30.65%) and aesculin hydrolysis 14(22.58%). The overall proportion of diarrheagenic E. coli was 33/62(53.2%). The distributions of typical diarrheagenic E. coli includes: tETEC 9(14.5%), tEPEC 13(20.9%), tEAEC 6(9.7%), tEIEC 2(3.2%) and tEHEC 3(4.8%). The proportions of atypical strains include aETEC 10(16.1%), aEAEC 5(8.1%), aEPEC 1(1.6%) and aEIEC 3(4.8%). This study demonstrated that some RTE foods sold in Yenagoa, Nigeria, are contaminated and constitute a probable human health hazard. Thus, there is a need for intensive surveillance of this isolate in RTE foods variety to spot evolving AMR phenotypes and avert food-borne infections.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Anti-Bacterial Agents / pharmacology
Escherichia coli* / genetics
Food Microbiology*
Humans
Nigeria
Virulence Factors / genetics

Substances

Anti-Bacterial Agents
Virulence Factors

Grants and funding

This project is supported financially by the African-German Excellence in Science (AGNES) for the Junior Research Grant (JRG) Ref No: AGNES-JRG-2019 We thank the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), South Africa, and South Africa Medical Research Council (SA-MRC) for the facilities provided in course of preparing this manuscript. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.