title: Distribution of serotypes and pulsotypes of Listeria monocytogenes from human, food and environmental isolates (Italy 2002-2005).
abstract: This work was undertaken to study the serotypes and pulsotypes of 674 Listeria monocytogenes isolates from human (57), food (558) and environmental (59) sources, collected from different Italian geographical areas during 2002-2005, to determine whether certain subtypes were associated with certain foods and more often involved in cases of listeriosis, and to determine possible geographical or temporal associations. Eleven different L. monocytogenes serotypes were found in the food, environmental and human isolates. Most isolates belonged to only four serotypes (1/2a, 1/2b, 1/2c, 4b). The isolates were divided into 133 distinct AscI pulsotypes grouped into 26 pulsogroups. Pulsogroups ranged from a minimum of 2 up to 212 isolates, and contained 1-19 different pulsotypes. When associations between subtypes and isolates from specific foods selected as being most frequently involved in cases of listeriosis were tested some of these associations were highly significant but not exclusive, indicating that there was no close correlation between specific subtypes and specific food products. Despite the limitations of this study (few human isolates versus many food isolates prevalently collected from one food category), we believe that a large-scale database of L. monocytogenes subtypes and a timely epidemiological investigation can facilitate risk assessment and outbreak detection and control.
authors.affiliation: National Centre for Food Quality and Risk Assessment, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena 299, 00161 Rome, Italy. monica.gianfranceschi@iss.it
authors.forename: Monica Virginia
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Gianfranceschi
authors.forename: Maria Claudia
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: D'Ottavio
authors.forename: Antonietta
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gattuso
authors.forename: Antonino
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bella
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Aureli
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000517:prevention & control; D005516:Food Microbiology; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008089:Listeria monocytogenes / Q000145:classification*; D008088:Listeriosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D010802:Phylogeny; D012703:Serotyping