Antimicrobial resistance and presence of the SXT mobile element in Vibrio spp. isolated from aquaculture facilities.

The aim of this work was to assess the susceptibility of Vibrio spp. strains isolated from fish cultures against some usually applied antibiotics and the occurrence of the SXT mobile genetic element among them. Antimicrobial resistance was assessed by the standard disk diffusion technique while the presence of the SXT mobile genetic element was determined by conventional PCR. High levels of resistance to ampicillin (70%), cefoxitin (44%), streptomycin (31%), aztreonam (25%) and sulfamethoxazole (21%) were detected, and a high inter-and-intraspecies diversity in the resistance profile was observed for the majority of the analysed isolates. The SXT mobile genetic element was detected in only 4 isolates belonging to the species V. diazotrophicus (1), V. mediterranei (2) and V. vulnificus (1), which showed a variable antibiotic resistance profile. Horizontal antibiotic resistance gene transfer from the V. diazotrophicus SXT-positive strain to a laboratory E. coli strain was demonstrated under laboratory conditions. Our results suggest that the Vibrio spp. isolated from aquaculture facilities analysed in this study, although not being pathogenic, they constitute a source of antimicrobial resistance genes that could be mobilized to other bacterial populations through mobile genetic elements. However, the low occurrence of the SXT element in these isolates supports the hypothesis that this element is not involved in the development of resistance in the majority of Vibrio spp. in the examined aquaculture facilities.