**1. Introduction**

Antibiotic resistance represents a significant and complex global health problem. Global consumption of antibiotics has increased by nearly 40% in the last decade [1]. Apart from fundamental applications in clinical settings, very large amounts of antibiotics are used in agriculture, the food industry, and aquaculture [2]. Due to incomplete metabolism and the environmental spread of unused antibiotics, they enter the ecosystem, serving as a potent stimulus to elicit a bacterial adaptation response to develop antibiotic resistance and genes [3,4]. The accumulation of antibiotics in the environment

facilitates the spread of antibiotic resistance genes. Various resistance mechanisms are continuously emerging and spreading globally, which threatens our ability to treat common infectious diseases, resulting in increased death, disability, and costs. TheWorld Health Assembly, in 2015, thus adopted a global action plan on antimicrobial resistance focussing on bacterial resistance [5].

There is a worldwide concern about the emergence of antibiotic resistance in bacteria carried by healthy individuals, so-called commensal bacteria. Commensal bacteria from the gut microbes, e.g., coliforms, may play a crucial role in the spread of resistance within a community. Surveillance data shows that resistance in *Escherichia coli* is generally consistently highest for antimicrobial agents that have been in use the longest time in human and veterinary medicine [6]. *E. coli* is also considered an indicator bacteria of antibiotic resistance. Animal and human fecal flora and the environment, including water sources, serve as natural habitats and reservoirs of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and resistance genes. Antibiotic resistance in wastewater, surface water, and drinking water is well documented [7,8].

Thus, within the community, resistant bacteria circulated from person to person or from animals and environment to person, or vice versa. The epidemiology of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms at the human-animal-environmental interface involves complex and largely unpredictable systems that include transmission routes of resistant bacteria, as well as resistance genes and the impact of antibiotic-selective pressures in various reservoirs (animals, humans, and the environment). Though the presence and patterns of antibiotic resistant commensal indicator bacteria *E. coli* isolates from humans, animals, and water have been studied in isolation, it is now recognized that they need to be studied together, i.e., using the 'one-health' approach [5]. Thus, our aim is to determine and compare the antibiotic resistance pattern among commensal coliforms and *E. coli* from humans, animals, and water from the same community.
