Continued widespread dissemination and increased poultry host fitness of Campylobacter jejuni ST-4526 and ST-4253 in Japan

Abstract

Aims: Campylobacter jejuni is a major cause of foodborne gastroenteritis. We previously reported the widespread Camp. jejuni sequence type ( Significance and Impact of the study: This is the first evidence of the continued thriving of ST-4526/ST-4253 in Japan with their increased in vivo fitness. Our findings suggest that poultry mediates the microevolution of this pathogen, thereby enabling these STs to become widespread.

Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profiles and Molecular Typing of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli Isolates from Ducks in South Korea

“…The reasons for the high prevalence (9/46 isolates [19.6%]) of ST-21 isolated from ducks in our study may be that ducks are an ST-21 host and that no large investigations have compared data for ducks with those for other poultry, such as chickens and turkeys, from the MLST database. The increasing fitness of certain STs may have induced the high prevalence in ducks, as poultry may mediate the microevolution of Campylobacter to become widespread (45). Ducks maintained in an open air system can easily exchange pathogens with the environment, wild animals, or other domestic animals near the duck farm, which is consistent with the case for other livestock, such as chickens (46).…”

Molecular Typing of Fluoroquinolone-ResistantCampylobacter jejuniIsolated from Broilers in Japan Using Multilocus Sequence Typing and Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis

“…Many reports have pointed out that the fluoroquinolone resistance emerges rapidly and persists in C. jejuni when fluoroquinolone is administered in the drinking water of broilers (McDermott et al, 2002;Luo et al, 2003;van Boven et al, 2003;Griggs et al, 2005;Humphrey et al, 2005;Takahashi et al, 2005). Moreover, fluoroquinolone-resistant strains possess an enhanced fitness in the chicken host (Luo et al, 2005;Asakura et al, 2013), and the strains were found to persist even after the selection pressure was removed (Price et al, 2005(Price et al, , 2007. Thus, these results suggest that fluoroquinolone-resistant C. jejuni strains are selected and continue to prevail following the use of fluoroquinolone in the farms.…”

“…In the present study, we isolated ST4253 strains from chickens for the first time. Asakura et al (2013) reported that fluoroquinolone-resistant ST-4526 and ST-4253 strains isolated from humans showed colonization abilities in the chicken gut that were superior to the other CC-21 strains. These results suggested that high prevalence of these STs in humans is related to their high occurrence in poultry caused by superior abilities to colonize the chicken intestine.…”

“…Thus, these results suggest that fluoroquinolone-resistant C. jejuni strains are selected and continue to prevail following the use of fluoroquinolone in the farms. The fluoroquinolone-resistant strains ST-4526 and ST-4253 continue to thrive in the C. jejuni population in humans in Japan (Asakura et al, 2013). We provided the first submission of ST4526 isolated from chicken in Japan to the MLST database in 2006 (ID 10249).…”

“…Moreover, some reports suggest that fluoroquinolone-resistant strains may be more fit than wild-type Campylobacter in the chicken host (van Boven et al, 2003;Luo et al, 2005;Asakura et al, 2013).…”