The spread of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli (ESBL-EC) has posed a critical health risk to both humans and animals, because resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics makes treatment for commonly infectious diseases more complicated. In this study, we report the prevalence and genetic characteristics of ESBL-ECs isolated from retail meat samples in Korea. A total of 1205 E. coli strains were isolated from 3234 raw meat samples, purchased from nationwide retail stores between 2015 and 2018. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed for all isolates by a broth microdilution method, and the ESBL phenotype was determined according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) confirmatory method. All ESBL-EC isolates (n = 29) were subjected to whole-genome sequencing (WGS). The antimicrobial resistance genes, plasmid incompatibility types, E. coli phylogroups, and phylogenetic relations were investigated based on the WGS data. The prevalence of ESBL-ECs in chicken was significantly higher than that in other meat samples. The results in this study demonstrate that clonally diverse ESBL-ECs with a multidrug resistance phenotype were distributed nationwide, although their prevalence from retail meat was 0.9%. The dissemination of ESBL-ECs from retail meat poses a potential risk to consumers and food-handlers, suggesting that the continuous surveillance of ESBL-ECs in retail meat should be conducted at the national level.
Keywords: ESBL; Escherichia coli; extended-spectrum beta-lactamase; retail meat; whole-genome sequencing.