Comparative Analysis of Aerotolerance, Antibiotic Resistance, and Virulence Gene Prevalence in Campylobacter jejuni Isolates from Retail Raw Chicken and Duck Meat in South Korea.

Jinshil Kim,Jae In Jung,Seongbeom Cho,Hyeeun Park,Junhyung Kim,Sangryeol Ryu,Byeonghwa Jeon,Jong Hyun Kim

doi:10.3390/microorganisms7100433

Abstract

Human infections with Campylobacter are primarily associated with the consumption of contaminated poultry meat. In this study, we isolated Campylobacter jejuni from retail raw chicken and duck meat in Korea and compared their aerotolerance, antibiotic resistance, and virulence gene prevalence. Whereas C. jejuni isolates from chicken dominantly belonged to multilocus sequence typing (MLST) clonal complex (CC)-21, CC-45 is the common MLST sequence type in duck meat isolates. C. jejuni strains from both chicken and duck meat were highly tolerant to aerobic stress. The prevalence of virulence genes was higher in C. jejuni strains from chicken than those from duck meat. However, antibiotic resistance was higher in duck meat isolates than chicken isolates. Based on the prevalence of virulence genes and antibiotic resistance, fluoroquinolone-resistant C. jejuni strains harboring all tested virulence genes except virB11 were predominant on retail poultry. Fluoroquinolone-resistant C. jejuni strains carrying most virulence genes were more frequently isolated in summer than in winter. The comparative profiling analysis in this study successfully demonstrated that antibiotic-resistant and pathogenic strains of C. jejuni are highly prevalent on retail poultry and that retail duck meat is an important vehicle potentially transmitting C. jejuni to humans in Korea.

Highlights

Campylobacter is a leading etiological agent of gastroenteritis, accounting for approximately 166 million diarrheal cases globally per year [1]
Compared to C. coli, C. jejuni was more prevalent on retail raw poultry in Korea, and both pathogenic species were simultaneously isolated from 9.8% of raw chicken and 18.0% of duck meat samples (Table 1)
Along with the other factors affecting foodborne infections, such as cross-contamination and temperature abuse, the findings in our study suggest that C. jejuni strains with an increased public health risk of antibiotic resistance and virulence gene prevalence are more prevalent on retail raw chicken and duck meats in summer than in winter

Summary

Introduction

Campylobacter is a leading etiological agent of gastroenteritis, accounting for approximately 166 million diarrheal cases globally per year [1]. The pathogenicity of C. jejuni is mediated by various virulence factors, such as flagellin, cytolethal distending toxin (CDT), adhesins (e.g., Campylobacter adhesion to Fibronectin (CadF), Peb1), Campylobacter invasion antigen (Cia) proteins, and phospholipase A (PldA). Peb is an adhesin that is involved in C. jejuni interaction with INT 407 cells [6] and affects host colonization [7]. CadF is an outer membrane protein that affects C. jejuni binding to epithelial cells [8], and a mutation of cadF completely prevented C. jejuni from colonizing chicken intestines [9]. PldA and CiaB significantly affect the ability of C. jejuni to colonize chicken intestines [12]

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion