The aims of this study were as follows: (i) to isolate Arcobacter spp. from the stool samples of patients with gastroenteritis; (ii) to identify them with molecular methods; (iii) to genotype them using enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC)-PCR; and (iv) to determine their antibiotic susceptibilities. For the study, a total of 3287 diarrhoeal stool samples submitted to the Microbiology Laboratory of the Kayseri Training and Research Hospital, Kayseri, Turkey, between 2010 and 2011 were analysed. Campylobacter blood-free selective medium supplemented with cefoperazone, amphotericin B and teicoplanin was used for isolation. Medium inoculated with stool samples was incubated microaerobically at 37 6C for 72-96 h. Phenotypic tests, a genusspecific PCR and a multiplex PCR were used to identify the arcobacters, whilst ERIC-PCR was used for genotyping and the antibiotic susceptibilities of the isolates were detected by E-test. Arcobacter spp. were isolated from nine of the 3287 samples. These nine isolates were identified as Arcobacter butzleri and all showed different ERIC-PCR profiles. All nine isolates were resistant to ampicillin and susceptible to gentamicin, tetracycline, erythromycin and ciprofloxacin. As far as is known, this is the first study in which A. butzleri has been isolated from human acute gastrointestinal infections in Turkey. According to these results, it is recommended that, when investigating the aetiology of infections of the digestive system in humans, Arcobacter spp. be considered for inclusion. The results of this study should contribute to our knowledge related to A. butzleri infections in humans.
INTRODUCTIONThe genus Arcobacter is a member of the family Campylobacteraceae. Currently, the genus Arcobacter has a total of 15 recognized species: Arcobacter butzleri, Arcobacter cryaerophilus, Arcobacter skirrowii, Arcobacter nitrofigilis, Arcobacter cibarius, Arcobacter halophilus, Arcobacter mytili, Arcobacter thereius, Arcobacter marinus, Arcobacter trophiarum, Arcobacter defluvii, Arcobacter molluscorum, Arcobacter ellisi, Arcobacter bivalviorum and Arcobacter venerupis Figueras et al., 2011; Levican et al., 2012). Three species, namely A. butzleri, A. cryaerophilus and A. skirrowii, have been associated with gastrointestinal infections (Burnens et al., 1992;Jiang et al., 2010;Vandamme et al., 1992a) and extra-intestinal invasive diseases (Lau et al., 2002;On et al., 1995;Yan et al., 2000). In addition, asymptomatic arcobacter carriage in type 2 diabetic patients has been reported (Fera et al., 2010). Because of its isolation from many human disease cases, A. butzleri is considered to be the most important species of the genus. Some studies have reported the isolation and molecular analyses of arcobacters from miscellaneous sources in Turkey (Atabay et al., 2003(Atabay et al., , 2008Aydin et al., 2007;Ertas et al., 2010). However, in human medicine, no studies have been conducted on arcobacters, except for one case report (Kayman et al., 2010).The current study was undertake...
