Retail liver juices enhance the survivability of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli at low temperatures

Abstract

The high prevalence of Campylobacter spp. in retail liver products was previously reported and has been linked to several outbreaks of campylobacteriosis. The main objective of this study was to investigate the influence of retail liver juices on the survivability of several strains of C. jejuni and C. coli , which were previously isolated from various retail meats at 4 °C. All tested Campylobacter strains showed higher survival in beef liver juice (BLJ) and chicken liver juice (CLJ) as compared to beef and chicken juices (BJ and CJ) or Mueller Hinton broth (MHB) at 4 °C. Overall, C. jejuni strains showed greater survival in retail liver and meat juices as compared to C. coli . CLJ enhanced biofilm formation of most C. coli strains and supported growth in favorable conditions. When diluted, retail liver and meat juices enhanced survival of Campylobacter strains at low temperatures and increased aerotolerance. In conclusion, beef and chicken liver juices enhanced the survival of C. jejuni and C. coli strains at low temperatures, which helps explain the high prevalence of Campylobacter spp. in retail liver products.

Whole genome sequencing reveals extended natural transformation in Campylobacter impacting diagnostics and the pathogens adaptive potential

“…It has to be noted, that stress survival of the microaerobic Campylobacter is one of the major and still enigmatic topics in order to explain the pathogens widespread dissemination. C. jejuni was shown to survive longer in liver juice 45 . Aerotolerant C. jejuni strains were identified 46 but also aerotolerant C. coli isolates were highly prevalent in other studies 47 .…”

Campylobacter jejuni Biofilm Formation Under Aerobic Conditions and Inhibition by ZnO Nanoparticles

“…It is complicated to remove biofilms because of the sophisticated biofilm regulatory mechanisms involving many genes (Karki et al, 2019) that underlie biofilm formation (Nobile and Mitchell, 2005;Sakuragi and Kolter, 2007;Arenas and Tommassen, 2017;Shukla et al, 2017). Previous research showed that only nanosized ZnO particles had an antibiofilm effect (Alves et al, 2017), mainly because ZnO nanoparticles are small and have a large specific surface area and high oxidation ability, and their effects against biofilms are attributable to the generation of reactive oxygen species on their surface (Zheng et al, 2014;Setyawati et al, 2015).…”

“…However, it is easy to acquire C. jejuni from water, soil, and so on (Teh et al, 2014). It is also puzzling that although planktonic C. jejuni has a weak ability to survive multiple stressors in the environment, it can cause foodborne diarrheal illness (Karki et al, 2019;Kim et al, 2019). Research on C. jejuni infections is rare compared to research on other foodborne pathogens, such as Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes.…”

Bridging the Gap: A Role for Campylobacter jejuni Biofilms

“…As seen in Figure 3, within an avian host, there is evidence to suggest that biofilms may be important. In the presence of chicken exudate, C. jejuni produces a substantial increase in the amount of formed biofilm as well as enhanced survivability in the presence of liver juices [78,79]. Biofilm formation may play an important role in the intermediate steps between avian reservoirs and infection in humans.…”

“…Evidence shows that many of the factors present in the environment can up-regulate biofilm formation in C. jejuni [45,49]. There is also evidence to suggest that C. jejuni either forms biofilm in the chicken intestinal tract [78,79] or adopts an adherent phenotype within avian hosts [80]. This allows the organism to survive on food preparation surfaces and in food products, water reservoirs, and similar environments until the bacteria reach the human host, whereby biofilms are down-regulated and bacterial cells are able to proliferate and invade the epithelium of the intestine.…”