DNA restriction digest and ribosomal RNA gene patterns ofCampylobacter jejuni: a comparison with bio-, sero-, and bacteriophage-types of United Kingdom outbreak strains

Abstract

SUMMARYDNA restriction endonuclease (Hae III and Hind III) total digest and 16S and 23S ribosomal (r)RNA gene patterns (ribopatterns) were determined for 18 isolates of Campylobacter jejuni from three separate outbreaks of diarrhoea in the north of England. Strains were also characterized by biotyping, serotyping and phage typing. Comparisons of the DNA patterns by visual and numerical methods revealed five distinct strain groupings with clear differences between isolates from different outbreaks as well as some heterogeneity between strains within the community outbreak and one of the school outbreaks. An excellent correlation was observed between the genomic DNA fingerprints data and the Preston bacteriophage group, both of which gave better discrimination than biotyping and serotyping alone or in combination. Only one phage group (PG 37) was not confirmed by the DNA data. DNA fingerprints therefore provide additional information of value in studying the epidemiology of outbreaks of C. jejuni.

Molecular subtyping by genome and plasmid analysis ofCampylobacter jejuniserogroups O1 and O2 (Penner) from sporadic and outbreak cases of human diarrhoea

“…Ribopatterns provide a well validated and reproducible means of discriminating between strains in many bacterial species [39], and have proved to be particularly effective in identifying strains of C. jejuni [14,17,[21][22][23][24]. We have shown in previous studies that overall ribopattern similarities broadly reflect the taxonomic affinities of strains within the thermophilic campylobacters.…”

“…Phage typing has been developed but utilized in only a limited number of studies on C. jejuni [13][14][15]. Similarly, DNA (molecular) typing, based on total genomic DNA digest patterns from conventional [14,[16][17][18][19] and pulse field gel electrophoresis [20], ribosomal RNA gene restriction digest patterns [14,17,[21][22][23][24], and plasmid profiling [25], has been applied to a limited extent. Recently, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to obtain randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) profiles.…”

Comparison of PFGE, ribotyping and phage-typing in the epidemiological analysis ofCampylobacter jejuniserotype HS2 infections

“…Hae III and Pst I digestion, agarose gel electrophoresis, Southern blotting and hybridization with biotinylated probe DNA were carried out as previously described [8] except the 1500 bp 168 rRNA gene specific probe was generated by PCR amplification of genomic DNA from C. jejuni NCTC 11168. The primer sequences used were 5'-AAGAGTTTGATCCTGGCTCAG-3' and 5'-GGTTACCTT-GTTACGACTT-3' which represent nucleotides 7-27 and 1492-1510 respectively of the Escherichia coli rrnB sequence [9].…”

A milk-borne campylobacter outbreak following an educational farm visit

“…Thirdly, this outbreak shows the potential value of subspecies typing of campylobacter strains [19,20]. The common bio/resistotype of the majority of the outbreak-related isolates in contrast to the variable bio/resistotype of contemporaneous sporadic isolates provides strong supportive evidence that this was a common source outbreak associated with secondary household spread.…”