High Campylobacter diversity in retail chicken: Epidemiologically important strains may be missed with current sampling methods

Dziegiel, Agata H., Bloomfield, Samuel J., Savva, George M., Palau, Raphaëlle, Janecko, Nicol, Wain, John and Mather, Alison E. (2024) High Campylobacter diversity in retail chicken: Epidemiologically important strains may be missed with current sampling methods. Epidemiology and Infection, 152. ISSN 0950-2688

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Abstract

Campylobacter spp. are leading bacterial gastroenteritis pathogens. Infections are largely underreported, and the burden of outbreaks may be underestimated. Current strategies of testing as few as one isolate per sample can affect attribution of cases to epidemiologically important sources with high Campylobacter diversity, such as chicken meat. Multiple culture method combinations were utilized to recover and sequence Campylobacter from 45 retail chicken samples purchased across Norwich, UK, selecting up to 48 isolates per sample. Simulations based on resampling were used to assess the impact of Campylobacter sequence type (ST) diversity on outbreak detection. Campylobacter was recovered from 39 samples (87%), although only one sample was positive through all broth, temperature, and plate combinations. Three species were identified (Campylobacter jejuni, Campylobacter coli, and Campylobacter lari), and 33% of samples contained two species. Positive samples contained 1-8 STs. Simulation revealed that up to 87 isolates per sample would be required to detect 95% of the observed ST diversity, and 26 isolates would be required for the average probability of detecting a random theoretical outbreak ST to reach 95%. An optimized culture approach and selecting multiple isolates per sample are essential for more complete Campylobacter recovery to support outbreak investigation and source attribution.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Data availability statement: Raw sequence data of the genomes analysed in this study are available in the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Sequence Read Archive (SRA) (BioProject Accession No. PRJNA1022324). Funding information: This work was supported by the UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership (Grant No. BB/T008717/1) as a Joint-Funded Studentship with the Food Standards Agency (FSA), the BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Microbes in the Food Chain BB/R012504/1 and its constituent project BBS/E/F/000PR10348 (Theme 1, Epidemiology and Evolution of Pathogens in the Food Chain), the BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Microbes and Food Safety BB/X011011/1 and its constituent project BBS/E/F/000PR13634 (Theme 1, Microbial Threats from Foods in Established and Evolving Food Systems) and the FSA through a Fellowship to A.E.M. (Project No. FS101185). G.M.S. was supported by the Core Capability Grants BB/CCG1860/1 and BB/CCG2260/1. The funders were not involved in the study design, data collection, analysis, or interpretation of results.
Uncontrolled Keywords: antimicrobial resistance,campylobacter,chicken,outbreaks,source attribution,whole genome sequencing,epidemiology,infectious diseases,sdg 3 - good health and well-being ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2700/2713
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Health Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Metabolic Health
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 13 Sep 2024 14:30
Last Modified: 28 Sep 2024 00:01
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/96752
DOI: 10.1017/S0950268824000906

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