Abstract
BackgroundBacteria belonging to the Arcobacter genus are emerging enteropathogens and potential zoonotic agents. Their taxonomy has evolved very rapidly, and there are presently 18 recorded species. The prevalence of species belonging to Arcobacter is underestimated because of the limitations of currently available methods for species identification.The aim of this study was to compare the performance of five PCR based methods that target regions of 16S rRNA, 23S rRNA or gyrA genes to identify Arcobacter species, and to review previous results reported in the literature using these methods.ResultsThe five tested methods were found not to be reliable. They misidentified between 16.8% and 67.4% of the studied strains; this was dependent upon the target regions of the tested genes. The worst results obtained were for the identification of Arcobacter cryaerophilus and Arcobacter butzleri when the 23S rRNA gene was used as the target. These species were confused with many non-targeted species.ConclusionOur results suggest that the known diversity of Arcobacter spp. in different environments could be expanded if reliable identification methods are applied in future studies.
Highlights
Bacteria belonging to the Arcobacter genus are emerging enteropathogens and potential zoonotic agents
They were as follows: two multiplex PCR (m-PCR) designed for A. butzleri, A. cryaerophilus, and A. skirrowii [14,15]; a PCR method that targets A. butzleri, A. cryaerophilus, A. skirrowii, and A. cibarius [16]; and two methods that target A. butzleri, A. cryaerophilus, A. skirrowii, A. cibarius, and A. thereius, or A. nitrofigilis and A. halophilus
Comparative performance of the five molecular methods The percentage of correctly identified strains obtained using the five identification methods, and the number of misidentified non-targeted species greatly depended upon the method used (Tables 1 and 2)
Summary
Bacteria belonging to the Arcobacter genus are emerging enteropathogens and potential zoonotic agents. Previous studies have demonstrated a relationship between the presence of arcobacters in water samples and bacterial indicators of faecal pollution [2,3] This genus belongs to the Campylobacteraceae family and was originally proposed by Vandamme et al in 1991 [4] to accommodate two aerotolerant species (Arcobacter cryaerophilus and Arcobacter nitrofigilis), which had previously been included in the Campylobacter genus. This has led to the digestion of the 16S rRNA gene with the MseI endonuclease; this was able to identify the six species so far described (A. butzleri, A. cryaerophilus, A. cibarius, A. skirrowii, A. nitrofigilis, and Arcobacter halophilus) This method was recently updated with the inclusion of additional endonucleases (MnlI and BfaI), and is able to identify the 17 Arcobacter spp. described at the time of publication [19]. A literature review was performed to analyse the results that have been obtained using these methods since their publication
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