Genetic characterization of Gram-negative bacteria from different fresh retail vegetables in Nigeria

Vegetables include the leafy, fruit, seed or root vegetables that are edible for human consumption. Outbreaks of food infections associated with consumption of ready-to-eat vegetables have been on the increase, which has been linked epidemiologically to the consumption of a wide range of these vegetables.In Nigeria, there exists various reports on the susceptibility of isolates from retail vegetables with little/no information about their genetic characterization. This study was designed to evaluate the microbial quality, the antibiotic resistance pattern of gram-negative bacteria isolates from retail leaf and salad vegetables found in Okada market Edo state Nigeria and to characterize the isolates using whole genome sequencing.