Abstract
Campylobacter species are one of the leading causes of foodborne disease in the United States. Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli are the two main species of concern to human health and cause approximately 95% of human infections. Molecular typing methods, such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) are often used to source track foodborne bacterial pathogens. The aim of the present study was to compare PFGE and MLST in typing strains of C. jejuni and C. coli that were isolated from different Oklahoma retail meat sources. A total of 47 Campylobacter isolates (28 C. jejuni and 19 C. coli) isolated from various retail meat samples (beef, beef livers, pork, chicken, turkey, chicken livers, and chicken gizzards) were subjected to pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). PFGE was able to group the 47 Campylobacter isolates into two major clusters (one for C. jejuni and one for C. coli) but failed to differentiate the isolates according to their source. MLST revealed 21 different sequence types (STs) that belonged to eight different clonal complexes. Twelve of the screened Campylobacter isolates (8 C. jejuni and 4 C. coli) did not show any defined STs. All the defined STs of C. coli isolates belonged to ST-828 complex. The majority of C. jejuni isolates belonged to ST-353, ST-607, ST-52, ST-61, and ST-21 complexes. It is worthy to mention that, while the majority of Campylobacter isolates in this study showed STs that are commonly associated with human infections along with other sources, most of the STs from chicken livers were solely reported in human cases. In conclusion, retail meat Campylobacter isolates tested in this study particularly those from chicken livers showed relatedness to STs commonly associated with humans. Molecular typing, particularly MLST, proved to be a helpful tool in suggesting this relatedness to Campylobacter human isolates.
Highlights
Campylobacter is a foodborne pathogen that is one of the leading causes of bacterial gastroenteritis [1].It causes an estimated 1.3 million infections a year [1]
It is worthy to mention that, while the majority of Campylobacter isolates in this study showed sequence types (STs) that are commonly associated with human infections along with other sources, most of the STs from chicken livers were solely reported in human cases
The results of the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) showed that the isolates studied were separated into two major groups according to their species (C. jejuni and C. coli) (Figure 1)
Summary
Campylobacter is a foodborne pathogen that is one of the leading causes of bacterial gastroenteritis [1]. In order to track Campylobacter infections, various genotyping methods are used, such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). PFGE is considered the “gold standard” in molecular typing for most bacteria, including foodborne pathogens, as the entire genome of the microbe is analyzed to create restriction profiles [8,9], it has its disadvantages in that it requires expensive equipment and complicated protocols, in addition to which, there are no standard methods for the interpretation of data, or sharing of this data with other scientists [9,10,11]. The objective of this study was to determine the genetic relatedness among 47 strains of C. jejuni and C. coli, isolated from different retail meat sources and to determine if one typing method is superior to the other one in determining such relatedness
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