Prevalence of antibiotic resistance in lactic acid bacteria isolated from traditional fermented Indian food products

The emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in lactic acid bacteria (LAB) raises questions on qualified presumptive safety status and poses challenge of AMR transmission in food milieu. This study focuses on isolation, identification and characterization of AMR in LAB prevalent in traditional fermented Indian food products. The analysis of 16SrRNA based phylogenetic tree showed placements of isolates among four different genera Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, Weissella and Leuconostoc. In E-strip gradient test of susceptibility to 14 different antibiotics, over 50% of isolates showed resistance to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, kanamycin, linezolid, streptomycin, trimethoprim and vancomycin. A multivariate principal component analysis, an antibiogram and multiple antibiotic resistance index-values (> 0.2) indicated presence of multidrug-resistance among the isolates. This study reports prevalence of an alarmingly high rate of AMR LAB strains in traditional fermented foods and is important to regulators and public health authorities for developing strategies to control transmission in food systems.