ESP gene and multiple antibiotics resistance of E.feacalis recovered from Mastitic cow's milk in Egypt

Enterococcus spp are one of the environmental mastitis pathogens with public health hazard and have different harmful effects on milkand dairy farms. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of Enterococcus spp in mastitic cow’s milk in Egypt, detection of some virulence genes as esp and cyl A of E.feacalis and their resistance to different classes of antibiotics. 130 (71.82 %) out of 181 milk samples were identified as Enterococcus spp particularly E.feacalis (33.34 %). Multiplex PCR was applied for detection of some virulence genes of E.feacalis as Enterococcus surface proteins (esp) and cytolysin (cylA). ESP was the predominant gene in all tested E.feacalis isolates, whereas cylAwas completely absent. In addition, antibiotic sensitivity tests noticed that Enterococcus spp isolates had multidrug resistance to different classes of antibiotics as 69.77% streptomycin, 53.49% gentamicin and 38.37% ampicillin. Also, higher resistances of E.feacalis isolates were observed to streptomycin (47.73%), ampicillin and gentamicin (45.46%, each). On the other hand, the Enterococcus spp especially E.feacalis were susceptible to ciprofloxacin. In conclusion, mastitc cow’s milk is considered as potential reservoirs of virulent and antibiotic resistance Enterococci with public health hazard when milk is consumed without any thermal treatment.