Abstract
BackgroundArcobacter constitute emerging food- and waterborne pathogens causing gastroenteritis in humans, but the underlying mechanisms are only incompletely understood. We therefore characterized Arcobacter isolates derived from human stool samples that had been collected during a prospective prevalence study in Germany in vitro. Thirty-six bacterial isolates belonging to the species A. butzleri (n = 24), A. cryaerophilus (n = 10) and A. lanthieri (n = 2) were genotyped by ERIC-PCR, the presence of 10 putative virulence genes was assessed and cytotoxic effects on the human intestinal cell line HT-29/B6 were analyzed applying the WST-assay.ResultsGenotyping revealed high genetic diversity within the species A. butzleri, A. cryaerophilus and A. lanthieri. Both, A. butzleri and A. lanthieri encoded for a large number of putative virulence genes, while fewer genes were detectable in A. cryaerophilus isolates. Notably, the three cytolethal distending toxin (CDT) genes cdtA, cdtB and cdtC were abundant in both A. lanthieri isolates. Furthermore, all A. butzleri and A. lanthieri, but only one of the A. cryaerophilus isolates exerted cytotoxic effects.ConclusionsOur study provides evidence for the abundance of putative virulence genes in Arcobacter isolates and prominent cytotoxic effects of A. butzleri and A. lanthieri in vitro. The presence of cdtA, cdtB, cdtC in A. lanthieri points towards CDT secretion as potential mechanism underlying cytotoxicity as opposed to A. butzleri. However, the association of the Arcobacter virulence factors detected and human morbidity should be addressed in future studies.
Highlights
Arcobacter constitute emerging food- and waterborne pathogens causing gastroenteritis in humans, but the underlying mechanisms are only incompletely understood
The association of the Arcobacter virulence factors detected and human morbidity should be addressed in future studies
Genotyping of Arcobacter isolates Enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC) sequences were detected in all 36 Arcobacter isolates, and different fragment patterns were generated consisting of 5 to 15 fragments ranging from approximately 100–1000 bp in length
Summary
Arcobacter constitute emerging food- and waterborne pathogens causing gastroenteritis in humans, but the underlying mechanisms are only incompletely understood. Thirty-six bacterial isolates belonging to the species A. butzleri (n = 24), A. cryaerophilus (n = 10) and A. lanthieri (n = 2) were genotyped by ERIC-PCR, the presence of 10 putative virulence genes was assessed and cytotoxic effects on the human intestinal cell line HT-29/B6 were analyzed applying the WST-assay. When assessing the potential pathomechanisms underlying Arcobacter induced disease, several studies revealed adhesive, invasive and cytotoxic properties of Arcobacter spp., with slightly different conclusions depending on the strains investigated, cell lines included and methods applied [3, 5, 9,10,11,12,13]. A. butzleri have been shown to compromize the barrier function in epithelial monolayers of HT-29/B6 cells in vitro, a mechanism, which might be responsible for the diarrhea induced by Arcobacter spp.[14]. In contrast to A. butzleri and A. cryaerophilus, the cytolethal distending toxin (CDT) encoding genes cdtABC have been detected in several A. lanthieri isolates [16]
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