title: Molecular Typing ofCampylobacter jejuniandCampylobacter coliIsolated from Various Retail Meats by MLST and PFGE.
abstract: Campylobacterspecies are one of the leading causes of foodborne disease in the United States.Campylobacter jejuniandCampylobacter coliare the two main species of concern to human health and cause approximately 95% of human infections. Molecular typing methods, such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) are often used to source track foodborne bacterial pathogens. The aim of the present study was to compare PFGE and MLST in typing strains ofC. jejuniandC. colithat were isolated from different Oklahoma retail meat sources. A total of 47Campylobacterisolates (28C. jejuniand 19C. coli) isolated from various retail meat samples (beef, beef livers, pork, chicken, turkey, chicken livers, and chicken gizzards) were subjected to pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). PFGE was able to group the 47Campylobacterisolates into two major clusters (one forC. jejuniand one forC. coli) but failed to differentiate the isolates according to their source. MLST revealed 21 different sequence types (STs) that belonged to eight different clonal complexes. Twelve of the screenedCampylobacterisolates (8C. jejuniand 4C. coli) did not show any defined STs. All the defined STs ofC. coliisolates belonged to ST-828 complex. The majority ofC. jejuniisolates belonged to ST-353, ST-607, ST-52, ST-61, and ST-21 complexes. It is worthy to mention that, while the majority ofCampylobacterisolates in this study showed STs that are commonly associated with human infections along with other sources, most of the STs from chicken livers were solely reported in human cases. In conclusion, retail meatCampylobacterisolates tested in this study particularly those from chicken livers showed relatedness to STs commonly associated with humans. Molecular typing, particularly MLST, proved to be a helpful tool in suggesting this relatedness toCampylobacterhuman isolates.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Science, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK 74104, USA. aneesa-noormohamed@utulsa.edu.
authors.forename: Aneesa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Noormohamed
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Science, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK 74104, USA. Mohamed-fakhr@utulsa.edu.
authors.forename: Mohamed K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Fakhr
keywords: Campylobacter; MLST; PFGE; beef; foodborne pathogens; livers; molecular typing; pork; poultry; retail meats