Background: Salmonellosis is widely recognized as an epidemic disease with public health significance. Salmonella Enteritidis has the ability to cause infections in humans and various animals, such as poultry. It is considered one of the most important and common serovars isolated in different regions of the world.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to characterize 100 S. Enteritidis isolates recovered from day-old broilers with respect to plasmid profile and enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus-polymerase chain reaction (ERIC-PCR).
Methods: All Salmonella isolates were recovered from cases referred to our laboratory. Standard bacteriological and molecular procedures were performed for the isolation and identification of S. Enteritidis. A commercial kit was used to extract the plasmids. Two primers, ERIC1R and ERIC2, were used for ERIC-PCR.
Results: Six plasmid profiles were identified among 100 isolates, and a plasmid with a molecular weight of greater than 10 kb was observed in all isolates. In ERIC-PCR, seven different profiles were identified with each primer. Using the ERIC1R primer, 80% of the isolates belonged to profiles A, B, and G, and the rest were distributed among the other four profiles. Additionally, using the ERIC2 primer, 85% of the isolates belonged to three profiles: D, F, and G, and the rest were distributed among the other four profiles. When the results of plasmid profiles and ERIC-PCR analysis using two different primers were combined, 100 S. Enteritidis isolates were divided into 43 groups, with seven groups comprising 54% of the isolates.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated that molecular techniques, such as ERIC-PCR and plasmid profile alone have limited power in differentiating between various isolates, and a combination of patterns obtained from multiple techniques will provide greater discriminatory power. This study presented genetic data related to S. Enteritidis isolates, which can be used for a broader epidemiological study at the national level.