Objectives: Determining the prevalence of children in day-care centres (DCCs) carrying faecal extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Enterobacteriaceae and molecularly characterizing those belonging to the Escherichia coli species.
Methods: Stools were collected from children's diapers (January-April 2012) in randomly chosen DCCs and plated onto ChromID ESBL. Colonies growing on this medium were identified by the Vitek 2 system and tested for antibiotic susceptibility and for ESBL production by the double-disc synergy test. ESBL genotypes were determined as well as phylogenetic groups, ERIC-2 (enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus) PCR profiles and sequence types (STs) for the E. coli isolates. Serotypes, virotypes, fimH alleles, ESBL-carrying plasmids and PFGE patterns were determined for the ST131 E. coli isolates.
Results: Among 419 children from 25 participating DCCs, 1 was colonized by CTX-M-15-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae and 27 (6.4%) by E. coli, which all produced CTX-M enzymes [CTX-M-15 (37%), CTX-M-1 (26%), CTX-M-14 (22%), CTX-M-27 (11%) and CTX-M-22 (4%)]. The 27 E. coli isolates, 55.5% belonging to group B2, displayed 20 ERIC-2 PCR profiles and 16 STs. The ST131 E. coli isolates were dominant (44%), displayed serotypes O25b:H4 and O16:H5, fimH alleles 30 and 41 and virotypes A and C. According to the PFGE patterns, one strain of E. coli ST131 producing a CTX-M-15 enzyme carried by an IncF F2:A1:B- plasmid had spread within one DCC.
Conclusions: This study shows a notable prevalence (6.4%) of DCC children with faecal CTX-M-producing E. coli isolates comprising a high proportion of E. coli ST131 isolates, suggesting that these children might be a reservoir of this clone.
Keywords: E. coli; fimH-based subclones; plasmids; virotypes.