Antimicrobial resistance of lactobacilli isolated from food

Bacteria of the genus Lactobacillus are of great benefit in many areas of life. They are widely used in food industry, in particular as part of starter cultures for fermented dairy and meat products, but also in human and veterinary medicine as probiotics. The increasing global problem of antimicrobial resistance may also involve lactic acid bacteria because of the possible risk of resistance genes transfer. We determined the antimicrobial susceptibility of lactobacilli isolated from food. Ninety facultatively heterofermentative lactobacilli isolated from retail dairy and meat products were tested. The resistance to antimicrobials was screened by the disk diffusion method and the minimum inhibitory concentrations were determined by the broth microdilution method. Fifteen strains (17%) were resistant to at least one antimicrobial agent and one strain was multiresistant.