Antimicrobial Resistance and Virulence-Associated Traits of Campylobacter jejuni Isolated From Poultry Food Chain and Humans With Diarrhea

Abstract

The objective of this study was to test the prevalence of virulence-associated markers and antimicrobial resistance in 624 C. jejuni isolated from poultry food chain, i. e., chicken feces (n = 160), poultry carcasses (n = 157), poultry meat (n = 152) and from humans (n = 155). All human strains were positive for 9 out of 13 putative virulence genes responsible for expression of pathogenic factors involved in different stages of the infection. The presence of all markers was also high in strains from chicken feces, carcasses and meat although not all of them were identified in 100% of the isolates. On the other hand, the virB11, wlaN, and iam putative pathogenic genes were detected in only 1.9, 15.2, and 20.5% of strains, respectively. C. jejuni isolates, irrespective of the origin, were highly resistant to ciprofloxacin (92.5% isolates), followed by nalidixic acid (88.9%) and tetracycline (68.4%). In case of ciprofloxacin, significantly more isolates from poultry feces, carcasses and meat were resistant than those obtained from humans and the same relationship was observed for tetracycline where the isolates from chicken feces were more often resistant than C. jejuni of carcasses and meat origin. A low number of strains was resistant to streptomycin (18.4% isolates) and only 5 strains (0.8%) displayed resistance to erythromycin. A relationship between resistance to fluoroquinolones and presence of selected pathogenic markers was observed, e.g., from 83.3% strains with the virB11 to 93.4% with the docA genes were resistant to ciprofloxacin. The isolates that did not possess any of the pathogenic traits were also mainly resistant to this antimicrobial, although the number of such strains was usually low, except virB11 (612 isolates), wlaN (529 strains), and iam (496 isolates). Furthermore, resistance to tetracycline was somehow associated with the presence of the virulence associated genes wlaN and virB11 (56.8 and 75.0% isolates, respectively). The present study shows a high antimicrobial resistance to quinolones and tetracycline of C. jejuni isolated along poultry food chain and from patients with diarrhea, which was closely correlated with the presence of several virulence genes playing a role in the pathogenesis of Campylobacter infection.

Antimicrobial Resistance and Virulence Properties of Campylobacter Spp. Originating from Domestic Geese in Poland

“…In the current study, 19% of the Campylobacter isolates from intestinal contents and 17.5% of the isolates from carcasses were positive for the wlaN gene. Similar rates were obtained previously by Wieczorek et al [49] in Poland at the level of 13.7% and 17.2% in isolates from chicken feces and carcasses, and by Guirado et al [18] in Spain at the level of 22% in chicken isolates. Additionally, in human origin Campylobacter isolates, the presence of the wlaN gene was estimated to be between 20% in Spain [18] and 17.4% in Poland [49].…”

“…Additionally, Kim et al [33], in studies on Campylobacter strains isolated from chicken and duck meat, detected a low rate of this marker, respectively, in 7.8% and 6.7% of the isolates. This marker was also identified sporadically in human clinical isolates, and the virB11 mutant can cause significantly less severe symptoms in vivo [48][49][50]. On the other hand, the rate of other markers involved in invasion, including the iam (invasion-associated marker), ciaB (Campylobacter invasive antigen B), and pldA (encoding a phospholipase A) genes, were commonly reported in previously conducted studies.…”

“…Frazao et al [41] showed the prevalence of these genes in all isolates from poultry feces and carcasses in Brazil. Additionally, Wieczorek et al [49] showed the high prevalence of the docA and racR genes in 100% Campylobacter strains isolated from chicken feces and in 98.1% and 95.5% of the isolates from poultry carcasses, respectively.…”

Characterization of isolated thermophilic campylobacters and associated risk factors in poultry farms of Uttarakhand, India

“…This gene along with cdtA and cdtC cytoxin gene has the ability to interfere with the division and differentiation of the intestinal crypt cells, ,thus has an important role in diarrhoea. This combination has been recorded with a prevalence of 96.6-97.6% in positive strains (50) which is in accordance with our study. It also suggests that the three genes( cdtA, cdtB and cdtC) should be included together in future studies for assessing toxic property.…”

Prospective Applications of Cold Plasma for Processing Poultry Products: Benefits, Effects on Quality Attributes, and Limitations

“…According to the paper, the reduction in Campylobacter population following plasma treatment fluctuated between 0.65 and 1.42 or 0.78 and 2.55 log CFU/cm 2 when air or argon was used as the working gas, respectively. Therefore, the authors suggested the nonthermal plasma as an effective disinfection technique for chicken fillet and chicken skin due to its effectiveness against C. jejuni (Rossow et al, 2018), which can be transmitted to human mainly through poultry products and lead to food infections (Wieczorek et al, 2018). Lee et al (2016) reported that DBD plasma treatment successfully decreased the number of total aerobic bacteria and pathogens in the vacuum packaged chicken breasts (Lee et al, 2016).…”