Monitoring antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in enteric pathogens isolated from retail meats and seafoods in North Carolina

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Project Summary Food animals, including retail pork, chicken, ground turkey and ground beef have been implicated as sources of Salmonella and Campylobacter and are the leading causes of bacterial foodborne illness. Both wild-caught and farm-raised salmon, shrimp, and tilapia have been implicated as sources of Vibrio and Aeromonas and are leading causes of sea-foodborne illness. Indicator pathogens, including Escherichia coli and Enterococcus spp., are also frequently isolated from these meat products. The situation is further complicated when the strains are also resistant to different antimicrobials. It is therefore important that we monitor the prevalence and trends of antimicrobial resistant (AMR) foodborne bacterial strains in the retail meat and seafood products that can eventually pass to the consumers along the farm-to-fork chain resulting in significant public health impact. The National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) plays an important role in surveillance of AMR bacterial pathogens in humans, food animals and retail meats. North Carolina is an important food producing state situated along the eastern US seashore and ranks among the top states in pork and poultry production. As an existing NARMS laboratory, our major objective is to continue to enhance the surveillance of AMR pathogenic and indicator bacterial strains in retail meats and seafood in North Carolina and generate critical data to contribute to the NARMS mission. We propose to conduct this study in collaboration with the FDA GenomeTrakr program. The PI (Dr. Thakur) laboratory is a GenomeTrakr laboratory, which will provide the opportunity to generate the whole genome sequences (WGS) of the bacterial strains thereby significantly assisting us in tracking the emergence of potential new AMR bacteria and allowing the public health agencies to take appropriate steps. The specific objectives of our proposal are: 1) Monitor antimicrobial resistance (AMR) trends in Salmonella, Campylobacter, Escherichia coli, Vibrio, Aeromonas, lactose fermenters, and Enterococcus spp. from retail meat and seafood samples collected in North Carolina region. 2) Generate and compare the WGS profiles of Salmonella, Campylobacter and E. coli, isolated from retail meat in North Carolina to detect the emergence of new AMR strains. The long-term objective of our proposal is to protect and promote public health by enhancing and strengthening the surveillance of AMR Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli, Vibrio, Aeromonas, lactose fermenters, and Enterococcus spp. in retail food specimens in the US.