Wild Boars as an Indicator of Environmental Spread of ESβL-Producing Escherichia coli

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) represents an increasing issue worldwide, spreading not only in humans and farmed animals but also in wildlife. One of the most relevant problems is represented by Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamases (ES beta Ls) producing Escherichia coli because they are the cause of important infections in human. Wild boars (Sus scrofa) as a source of ESK.s attracted attention due to their increasing density and their habits that lead them to be at the human-livestock-wildlife interface. The aim of this study was to increase the knowledge about the ES beta Ls E. coli strains carried by wild boars living in a particularly high-density area of Northern Italy. The analysis of 60 animals allowed to isolate 16 ES beta L-producing E. coli strains (prevalence 23.3%), which were characterised from a phenotypical and molecular point of view. The overall analysis revealed that the 16 isolates were all not only ES beta L producers but also multidrug resistant and carried different types of plasmid replicons. The genome analysis performed on a subset of isolates confirmed the heterogeneity observed with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and highlighted the presence of two pandemic sequence types, ST131 and ST10, with different collections of virulence factors. The genomic context of ESOL genes further evidenced that all of them were surrounded by transposons and insertion sequences, suggesting the possibility to exchange AMR genes. Overall, this study shows the worrying dissemination of ES beta L-producing E. coli in wild boars in Northern Italy, suggesting the role of these animals as a spreader of AMR and their inclusion in surveillance programmes, to shed light on the "One Health" complex interactions.