Department of Food Safety and Quality, Veterinary Academy, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Tilžės str.18, Kaunas LT-47181, Lithuania.
Department of Veterinary Disease Biology, University of Copenhagen, Stigbojlen 4, 1780 Frederiksberg C, Denmark.
J Med Microbiol. 2014 Sep;63(Pt 9):1205-1213. doi: 10.1099/jmm.0.072892-0. Epub 2014 Jul 1.
This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of Campylobacter jejuni in potential contamination sources that are not regularly monitored such as free-living urban pigeons and crows, dogs, cats and urban environmental water and to assess the possible impact on the epidemiology of campylobacteriosis in children using multilocus sequence typing (MLST). Campylobacter spp. were detected in 36.2 % of faecal samples of free-living urban birds and in 40.4 % of environmental water samples. A low prevalence of Campylobacter spp. was detected in dogs and cats, with 7.9 and 9.1 %, respectively. Further identification of isolates revealed that environmental water and pet samples were mostly contaminated by other Campylobacter spp. than C. jejuni, whereas C. jejuni was the most prevalent species in faecal samples of free-living birds (35.4 %). This species was the dominant cause of campylobacteriosis in children (91.5 %). In addition, the diversity of C. jejuni MLST types in free-living birds and children was investigated. Clonal complex (CC) 179 was predominant among free-living urban birds; however, only two isolates from children were assigned to this CC. One dog and one child isolate were assigned to the same clonal complex (CC48) and sequence type (ST) 918. The dominant two clonal complexes among the child clinical isolates (CC353 and CC21) were not detected among C. jejuni strains isolated from environmental sources examined in this study. As only two CCs were shared by environmental and child C. jejuni isolates and a high number of novel alleles and STs were found in C. jejuni isolated from free-living urban birds and environmental water, there is probably only a limited link between urban environmental sources and campylobacteriosis in children, particularly in rather cold climatic conditions.
本研究旨在调查在自由生活的城市鸽子和乌鸦、狗、猫和城市环境水中等未定期监测的潜在污染来源中弯曲杆菌属空肠弯曲菌的流行情况，并使用多位点序列分型（MLST）评估其对儿童弯曲杆菌病流行病学的可能影响。在自由生活的城市鸟类的粪便样本中检测到 36.2%的粪便样本中检测到弯曲杆菌属，在环境水样中检测到 40.4%。狗和猫中弯曲杆菌属的检出率较低，分别为 7.9%和 9.1%。进一步鉴定分离株表明，环境水样和宠物样本主要受到其他弯曲杆菌属的污染，而不是空肠弯曲菌，而空肠弯曲菌是自由生活鸟类粪便样本中最常见的物种（35.4%）。该物种是导致儿童弯曲杆菌病的主要原因（91.5%）。此外，还研究了自由生活鸟类和儿童中空肠弯曲菌 MLST 型的多样性。克隆复合体（CC）179在自由生活的城市鸟类中占优势；然而，只有来自儿童的两个分离物被分配到这个 CC。一只狗和一个儿童分离物被分配到同一个克隆复合体（CC48）和序列型（ST）918。在儿童临床分离物中占主导地位的两个克隆复合体（CC353 和 CC21）在本研究中检查的环境来源中空肠弯曲菌分离株中未检测到。由于环境和儿童空肠弯曲菌分离株中只有两个 CC 共享，并且在自由生活的城市鸟类和环境水中分离的空肠弯曲菌中发现了大量新的等位基因和 ST，因此城市环境来源与儿童弯曲杆菌病之间可能只有有限的联系，特别是在气候较冷的情况下。
