title: Prevalence and characteristics of Listeria monocytogenes in feces of black beef cattle reared in three geographically distant areas in Japan.
abstract: This study was conducted to determine the prevalence and characteristics of Listeria monocytogenes in the feces of black beef cattle reared in geographically distant areas in Japan. We surveyed 130 farms in the following three areas: northern (Hokkaido prefecture), central (Gifu and Mie prefectures), and southern (Oita, Miyazaki, and Kagoshima prefectures) areas and collected 1738 fecal samples. Our data showed the following isolation rate for each area: northern, 11.4% of 651; central, 2.8% of 572; and southern, 2.9% of 515, indicating that the isolation rate in the northern area was significantly higher than that in the central or southern areas (p<0.01). Moreover, serotyping of 996 isolates identified 1/2b as the most prevalent serotype (40.5%), followed by 1/2a (36.9%), 4b (21.6%), and 4ab (1.0%). In the northern area, multiple serotypes were isolated from 60% of L. monocytogenes-positive farms. In addition, multiple serotypes were isolated from individual fecal samples from 18 cattle. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) characterization of 239 isolates detected 48 different PFGE types. We found that isolates from northern farms were genetically diverse compared to those from central and southern farms. Five isolates from human clinical cases and three isolates from animal clinical cases were identical to isolates from black beef cattle. Furthermore, the isolates from northern and central farms were characterized to possess epidemic clone II or III markers. We next showed that the isolates were susceptible to penicillin, ampicillin, amoxicillin, gentamicin, kanamycin, streptomycin, erythromycin, vancomycin, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. Taken together, our survey provides crucial data regarding the prevalence and characteristics of L. monocytogenes in black beef cattle farms throughout Japan.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Nutrition, School of Nursing and Nutrition, Tenshi College , Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan .
authors.forename: Megumi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hasegawa
authors.forename: Eriko
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Iwabuchi
authors.forename: Shiori
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
authors.forename: Masatake
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Muramatsu
authors.forename: Ikuo
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Takashima
authors.forename: Katsuya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hirai
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D002417:Cattle / Q000382:microbiology*; D024901:Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology*; D007564:Japan; D008089:Listeria monocytogenes / Q000145:classification* / Q000187:drug effects / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D010641:Phenotype; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012703:Serotyping
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents