Mooyottu Shankumar, Flock Genevieve, Kollanoor-Johny Anup, Upadhyaya Indu, Jayarao Bhushan, Venkitanarayanan Kumar
Department of Animal Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA.
Department of Animal Science, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN 55108, USA.
Int J Food Microbiol. 2015 Jan 2;192:111-6. doi: 10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2014.10.002. Epub 2014 Oct 7.
Clostridium difficile is a pathogen of significant public health concern causing a life-threatening, toxin-mediated enteric disease in humans. The incidence and severity of the disease associated with C. difficile have increased in the US with the emergence of hypervirulent strains and community associated outbreaks. The detection of genotypically similar and identical C. difficile strains implicated from human infections in foods and food animals indicates the potential role of food as a source of community associated C. difficile disease. One hundred samples each of ground beef, pork and chicken obtained from geographically distant grocery stores in Connecticut were tested for C. difficile. Positive isolates were characterized by ribotyping, antibiotic susceptibility, toxin production and whole genome sequencing. Of the 300 meat samples, only two pork samples tested positive for C. difficile indicating a very low prevalence of C. difficile in meat. The isolates were non toxigenic; however, genome characterization revealed the presence of several antibiotic resistance genes and mobile elements that can potentially contribute to generation of multidrug resistant toxigenic C. difficile by horizontal gene transfer. Further studies are warranted to investigate potential food-borne transmission of the meat isolates and development of multi-drug resistance in these strains.
艰难梭菌是一种引起公众高度关注的病原体，可导致人类发生危及生命的、毒素介导的肠道疾病。随着高毒力菌株的出现和社区相关疫情的爆发，美国与艰难梭菌相关疾病的发病率和严重程度有所增加。在食品和食用动物中检测到与人类感染有关的基因型相似和相同的艰难梭菌菌株，表明食品可能是社区相关艰难梭菌疾病的一个来源。从康涅狄格州地理位置相距较远的杂货店采集了100份碎牛肉、猪肉和鸡肉样本，检测其中的艰难梭菌。对阳性分离株进行核糖体分型、抗生素敏感性、毒素产生和全基因组测序鉴定。在300份肉类样本中，只有两份猪肉样本的艰难梭菌检测呈阳性，表明肉类中艰难梭菌的流行率非常低。分离株不产生毒素；然而，基因组特征显示存在几个抗生素抗性基因和可移动元件，这些可能通过水平基因转移导致产生多重耐药性产毒素艰难梭菌。有必要进一步研究这些肉类分离株的潜在食源性传播以及这些菌株多重耐药性的发展情况。
