title: Prevalence of ThermotolerantCampylobacterspp. in Chicken Meat in Croatia and Multilocus Sequence Typing of a Small Subset ofCampylobacter jejuniandCampylobacter coliIsolates.
abstract: In order to detect thermotolerantCampylobacterspp., 241 samples of fresh chicken meat, at retail in Croatia, were analysed according to a standard method, followed by biochemical test and molecular polymerase chain reaction/restriction enzyme analysis for exact species determination.Campylobacterspp. prevalence was 73.86%.Campylobacter jejuniandCampylobacter coliwere isolated from 53.53 and 15.35% of the samples, respectively. In 4.98% of isolates thermotolerantCampylobacterspp. were not determined. The multilocus sequence typing method was used to evaluate genetic diversity of eightCampylobacter jejuniand fourCampylobacter coliisolates. To our knowledge, these results of genotyping provided the first data on the presence of sequence types (STs) and clonal complexes (CCs) ofCampylobacter jejuniandC.coliisolates in Croatia. By applying the multilocus sequence typing, a new allele oftktgene locus was discovered and markedtkt508. TheC.jejuniST 6182 andC.coliST 6183 genotypes were described for the first time, and all other identified genotypes were clustered in the previously described sequence types and clonal complexes. These findings provide useful information on the prevalence and epidemiology ofCampylobacter jejuniandC. coliin Croatia.
authors.affiliation: Croatian Veterinary Institute, Savska cesta 143, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mikulić
authors.affiliation: Croatian Veterinary Institute, Savska cesta 143, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Humski
authors.affiliation: University of Zagreb, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Heinzelova 55, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Bela
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Njari
authors.affiliation: University of Zagreb, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Heinzelova 55, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ostović
authors.affiliation: Croatian Veterinary Institute, Savska cesta 143, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Sanja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Duvnjak
authors.affiliation: Croatian Veterinary Institute, Savska cesta 143, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Željko
authors.initials: Ž
authors.lastname: Cvetnić
keywords: chicken meat in Croatia; multilocus sequence typing (MLST) method; prevalence; thermotolerant Campylobacter