Abstract
The objective of this work is to compare the phenotypic and virulence genes characteristics in human and chicken isolates of Proteus mirabilis. The bacterial examination of 50 livers of individual broilers, marketed by four major outlets, revealed a high recovery of P. mirabilis (66%), and a low recovery frequency of Salmonella spp. (4%), Serratia odorifera (2%), Citrobacter brakii (2%), and Providencia stuartii (2%). The phenotypic biochemical characterization of the recovered 33 chicken isolates of P. mirabilis were compared to 30 human isolates (23 urinary and six respiratory isolates). The comparison revealed significant differences in the presence of gelatinase enzyme (100% presence in chicken isolates versus 91·3 and 83·3% presence in human urinary and respiratory isolates, respectively, P<0·05). The H
2
S production occurred in 100% of chicken isolates versus 95·6 and 66·7% presence in human urinary and respiratory isolates, respectively, P<0·05). The other 17 biochemical characteristics did not differ significantly among the three groups of isolates (P>0·05). Two virulence genes, the mrpA and FliL, were having a typical 100% presence in randomly selected isolates of P. mirabilis recovered from chicken livers (N = 10) versus isolates recovered from urinary (N = 5) and respiratory specimens of humans (N = 5) (P>0·05). The average percentage similarity of mrpA gene nucleotide sequence of poultry isolates to human urinary and respiratory isolates was 93·2 and 97·5-%, respectively. The high similarity in phenotypic characteristics, associated with typical frequency of presence of two virulence genes, and high similarity in sequences of mrpA gene among poultry versus human P. mirabilis isolates justifies future investigations targeting the evaluation of adaptable pathogenicity of avian Proteus mirabilis isolates to mammalian hosts.