Аннотация:Abstract:Background:Fresh vegetables and fruits are one of the most important habitats for endophytic bacterial communities. These communities may contain pathogenic and opportunistic microorganisms such as Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella enterica, Pseudomonas spp., etc. Endophytic strains of these species may be resistant to various antibiotics. In our work, we examined the internal tissues of beetroots of different traders (Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Russia) for the presence of E. coli and evaluation of resistant strains against widely used antibiotics.Materials and Methods:Beetroots were purchased from retail networks. A total of 69 vegetables were analyzed. The traditional plating method on a highly selective chromogenic medium REBECCA® EB was used to study the community of endophytic E. coli. Three colonies from beets of different origins were isolated in a pure culture and identified based on 16S rDNA nucleotide sequence data using the BLAST NCBI. Antibiotic susceptibility of the E. coli strains was tested using Mueller-Hinton agar. Disks were tested with a wide range of antimicrobial drugs: Amoxicillin 10 (µg/disk) (AMO), Ampicillin 10 (µg/disk) (AMP), Meropenem 10 (µg/disk) (MER), Pefloxacin 5(µg/disk) (PEF), Streptomycin 300 (µg/disk) (STR), Ticarcillin+clavulanic acid 75 (µg/disk) (TIC), Fosfomycin 200 (µg/disk) (FOS), Ceftibuten 30 (µg/disk) (CEF), Ciprofloxacin 10 (µg/disk) (CIP). A total of 124 strains of E. coli were tested.Results: Endophytic E. coli were detected in 56% of beet samples from different traders. The percentage of strains resistant to at least one of the widely used antibiotics tested was 15%. Most resistant E. coli strains were isolated from Turkey beets.Conclusion:Thus, consumption of fresh beet may pose some risk to public health due to the presence of antibiotic-resistant strains of E. coli.Key Word: beet; fresh vegetables; Escherichia coli; endophytic microorganisms; antibiotic-resistance.
