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Prevalence of antibiotic resistance in lactic acid bacteria isolated from traditional fermented Indian food products

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Abstract

The emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in lactic acid bacteria (LAB) raises questions on qualified presumptive safety status and poses challenge of AMR transmission in food milieu. This study focuses on isolation, identification and characterization of AMR in LAB prevalent in traditional fermented Indian food products. The analysis of 16SrRNA based phylogenetic tree showed placements of isolates among four different genera Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, Weissella and Leuconostoc. In E-strip gradient test of susceptibility to 14 different antibiotics, over 50% of isolates showed resistance to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, kanamycin, linezolid, streptomycin, trimethoprim and vancomycin. A multivariate principal component analysis, an antibiogram and multiple antibiotic resistance index-values (> 0.2) indicated presence of multidrug-resistance among the isolates. This study reports prevalence of an alarmingly high rate of AMR LAB strains in traditional fermented foods and is important to regulators and public health authorities for developing strategies to control transmission in food systems.

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Acknowledgements

We are thankful to Dr. Barjinder Pal Kaur, Department of Food Engineering, NIFTEM for support in PCA analysis. The technical support of Mr. Rishi Bhatia and Dr. Kuljinder Kaur, Microbiology lab is duly acknowledged.

Funding

The work is funded by the National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM) Kundli, Sonepat (India).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Basic and Applied Sciences, NIFTEM, Sonipat, Haryana, 131028, India

    Anup Kumar Ojha, Vijendra Mishra, Neela Emanuel & Neetu Kumra Taneja

  2. Centre for Advanced Translational Research in Food Nanobiotechnology (CATR-FNB), NIFTEM, Sonepat, Haryana, 131028, India

    Neetu Kumra Taneja

  3. Food and Nutritional Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, SAR, China

    Nagendra Prasad Shah

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  1. Anup Kumar Ojha
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Contributions

AKO contributed to conceiving, data acquisition and writing the manuscript. NPS carried out analysis, data interpretation and critical revision. NE contributed to refining the manuscript. VM conceived the research work. NKT analyzed, interpreted, refined and critically revised the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Neetu Kumra Taneja.

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Ojha, A.K., Shah, N.P., Mishra, V. et al. Prevalence of antibiotic resistance in lactic acid bacteria isolated from traditional fermented Indian food products. Food Sci Biotechnol 32, 2131–2143 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10068-023-01305-1

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