The first record of Paraclostridium benzoelyticum and Enterococcus thailandicus bacteria isolated from the Eryx jaculus (Linnaeus, 1758) snake species distributed in Türkiye

In this study, we focused on the characterization of ten bacterial isolates obtained from Eryx jaculus (oral, skin, feces, and cloaca samples) using cultural methods and determine some virulence factors (antibiotic resistance, VanA, and TetM resistant genes, biofilm, siderophore, and some enzymatic activities, etc.). Multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) and virulence index (VI) of each strain were also calculated. Citrobacter freundii NH10 (EJF1), Enterococcus thailandicus 2545 (EJF2), Enterococcus faecium MG5232 (EJF3), Klebsiella pneumoniae KR56 (EJF4, EJC1, EJS1), Enterococcus mundtii AF-1 (EJC2, EJC3), Paraclostridium benzoelyticum CM8 (EJO1), Enterococcus faecalis MG5206 (EJO2) have been identified and this is the first record of the P. benzoelyticum CM8 and E. thailandicus 2545 from E. jaculus species. It was observed that all isolates produced amylase, while most of them produced siderophore (n = 7), hemolysin (n = 6) and protease (n = 6). It was determined that EJF2 and EJC2 strains produced weak positive (++) biofilm, while the other eight strains produced strong positive (+++) biofilm. Different sensitivity and resistance rates were observed against various antibiotic classes. While AM10 and A10 were determined as the antibiotics with the highest sensitivity, aminoglycoside G120 showed 100% resistance in all isolates. Moreover, EJO1 and EJO2 strains were classified in the high threat category with high virulence and MAR indices. PCR analysis showed the presence of resistance genes VanA in strain EJF1 and TetM in strain EJF2.