Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Escherichia coli (E. coli) poses a public health concern worldwide. Wild birds and rodents, due to their mobility, are potential vehicles for transmission of AMR bacteria to humans. Ninety-six wild birds’ faecal samples and 135 rodents’ droppings samples were collected and analysed in 2017. Forty-six E. coli isolates from wild birds and rodents were subjected to AMR phenotypic and genotypic characterisation. The proportion of E. coli isolates resistant to at least one of the antimicrobials tested from wild birds (80.8%) was significantly higher than that of isolates from rodents (40.0%). The proportion of E. coli isolates resistant to each antimicrobial class for wild birds was 3.8% to 73.1% and that for rodents was 5.0% to 35.0%. Six out of 26 E. coli isolates from wild birds (23.1%) and two out of 20 (10.0%) isolates from rodents were multi-drug resistant (MDR) strains. These MDR E. coli isolates were detected with various antimicrobial resistance genes such as bla_TEM-1B and qnrS1 and could be considered as part of the environmental resistome. Findings in this study suggested that wild birds and rodents could play a role in disseminating antimicrobial resistant E. coli, and this underscores the necessity of environment management and close monitoring on AMR bacteria in wild birds and rodents to prevent spreading of resistant organisms to other wildlife animals and humans.

中文翻译：

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新加坡野生鸟类和啮齿动物的大肠杆菌的发生和抗药性特征。

大肠杆菌（E. coli）中的抗菌素耐药性（AMR）引起了全球公众健康的关注。野生鸟类和啮齿动物由于其活动性而成为将AMR细菌传播给人类的潜在媒介。2017年收集并分析了96种野生鸟类的粪便样本和135种啮齿动物的粪便样本。对野生鸟类和啮齿动物的46株大肠杆菌分离物进行了AMR表型和基因型鉴定。对来自野禽的至少一种抗微生物药物有抗性的大肠杆菌分离物的比例（80.8％）显着高于从啮齿动物分离的大肠杆菌的比例（40.0％）。大肠杆菌的比例对禽类的每种抗菌剂具有抗药性的分离株为3.8％至73.1％，对啮齿类动物的分离株为5.0％至35.0％。来自野生鸟类的26种大肠杆菌分离物中有6种（23.1％），而来自啮齿动物的20种分离菌株中有2种（10.0％）是耐多药（MDR）菌株。这些MDR大肠杆菌分离物被检测出具有多种抗菌素耐药基因，例如bla _TEM-1B和qnrS1，可以被认为是环境耐药菌的一部分。这项研究的结果表明，野生鸟类和啮齿动物可能在传播抗药性大肠杆菌中发挥作用，这强调了环境管理和对野生鸟类和啮齿动物中AMR细菌进行密切监测的必要性，以防止抗性生物体向其他野生动植物和人类传播。