NAmur Research Institute for LIfe Sciences
The COLREC project, supported by NARILIS, concludes with a remarkable scientific publication
Food-producing animals are recognized as significant reservoirs of antimicrobial resistant bacteria, raising public health concerns, particularly regarding the spread of colistin resistance. This issue gained attention following the discovery of the mobile colistin resistance (mcr) gene in E. coli a decade ago, as it has the potential to transfer resistance to other bacteria, posing risks to humans, animals and the environment.
End 2018, the COLREC research project received a 50.000 € grant from NARILIS. Led by Prof. Benoît Muylkens (UNamur, URVI), the project focused on studying the prevalence and characteristics of colistin resistance in E. coli at the human-livestock interface, using a One Health approach. NARILIS funding facilitated the experimental work carried out by a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Wiebke Jansen, and a lab technician, Hélène Dumont. Over 2020 and 2021, the team investigated the presence of colistin-resistant and ESLB-producing E. coli in two conventional batches and one organic batch of healthy Wallon meat lambs, from birth to slaughter. This multidisciplinary project also benefited from ARSIA's leading field expertise in the epidemiological surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in livestock.
Additionally, a collaboration with Georges Daube's research group at ULiège allowed a veterinary student, Delphine Dragon, to complete her master's thesis on this topic in 2022-2023.
The findings of the COLREC project have now been published in the journal Animals (MDPI), as part of a special issue on “Antibiotic Use in Farms and Its Relation to Husbandry Practices and Animal Welfare”.
Read more :
Dragon D, Jansen W, Dumont H, Wiggers L, Coupeau D, Saulmont M, Taminiau B, Muylkens B, Daube G. Conventionally Reared Wallon Meat Lambs Carry Transiently Multi-Drug-Resistant Escherichia coli with Reduced Sensitivity to Colistin Before Slaughter. Animals (Basel). 2024 Oct 21;14(20):3038.
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