Relationships between multidrug-resistant Salmonella enterica Serovar Schwarzengrund and both broiler chickens and retail chicken meats in Japan.

We examined 29 isolates of Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica serovar Schwarzengrund from broiler chickens (n=19) and retail chicken meats (n=10) in Japan for antimicrobial susceptibility and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) profiling. All isolates exhibited resistance to both bicozamycin and sulfadimethoxine (minimum inhibitory concentration of both antimicrobial agents: >512 microg/ml). Nalidixic acid resistance was found in only one broiler chicken isolate. PFGE analysis showed that there were two genotypes among S. Schwarzengrund isolates. Isolates from 11 of 19 broiler chickens and from 6 of 10 retail chicken meats exhibited resistance to dihydrostreptomycin, kanamycin, oxytetracycline, bicozamycin, trimethoprim, and sulfadimethoxine, and had an identical PFGE pattern classified into a predominant genotype. Thus, our results indicate that genetically identical multidrug-resistant S. Schwarzengrund appeared to be disseminated among broiler chickens and retail chicken meats in Japan.