Concern exists that the continued use of antibiotics in animal feeds may lead to an increased prevalence of resistant bacteria within the host animal's gastrointestinal tract. To evaluate the effect of chlortetracycline on the persistence of Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium within a diverse population of porcine cecal bacteria, we cultured a mixed population of cecal bacteria without or with added chlortetracycline. When grown at a 24 h vessel turnover rate, chlortetracycline-susceptible S. Typhimurium exhibited more than 2.5 times faster (p < 0.05) disappearance rates than theoretically expected (0.301 log10 colony-forming unit/mL per day) but did not differ whether treated or not with 55 mg of chlortetracycline/L. Chlortetracycline-resistant S. Typhimurium was not recovered from any of these cultures. When the mixed cultures were inoculated with a chlortetracycline-resistant S. Typhimurium, rates of disappearance were nearly two times slower (p < 0.05) than those observed earlier with chlortetracycline-susceptible S. Typhimurium, and cultures persisted at >2 log10 colony-forming units/mL for up to 14 days of treatment with 110 mg of chlortetracycline/L. Under the conditions of this study, chlortetracycline-resistant S. Typhimurium was competitively enabled to persist longer within the mixed populations of porcine gut bacteria than chlortetracycline-susceptible S. Typhimurium, regardless of the presence or absence of added chlortetracycline.
Keywords: Salmonella Typhimurium; chlortetracycline; continuous culture; porcine.