Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Legnaro (PD), 35020, Italy.
Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, 31020 Villorba (TV), Italy.
Vet Microbiol. 2021 Aug;259:109161. doi: 10.1016/j.vetmic.2021.109161. Epub 2021 Jun 18.
Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli have commonly been considered harmless commensal inhabitants of the chicken gut; however, these Campylobacter spp. are known to be able to multiply in the gut and invade other tissues, negatively affecting host health and performance. In this study, fourteen Campylobacter spp. were isolated from chickens showing foci of necrosis on the liver surface resembling lesions observed in cases of avian vibrionic hepatitis/spotty liver disease. The whole genome sequences of the fourteen isolates were analysed and their virulomes compared to those of Campylobacter reference sequences, aiming to investigate the possible association between virulence genes and the observed pathological lesions. Nine C. jejuni and five C. coli were studied. These Campylobacter shared twelve virulence factors with other isolates originated from chicken livers and hosted a higher number of virulence-associated genes in comparison to the reference genomes, including genes encoding for factors involved in adherence to and invasion of the intestinal epithelial cells. Our findings seem to point out that these twelve common virulence-associated genes, together with the presence of a high number of virulence factors involved in adherence, invasion and motility, might be responsible for the extra-intestinal spread of our isolates and the colonization of parenchymatous tissues, possibly causing the pathological lesions observed.
空肠弯曲菌和大肠弯曲菌通常被认为是鸡肠道中无害的共生居民;然而，这些弯曲菌能够在肠道中繁殖并侵入其他组织，对宿主的健康和性能产生负面影响。在这项研究中，从肝脏表面出现坏死灶的鸡中分离出了 14 种弯曲菌，这些坏死灶类似于禽霍乱性肝炎/点状肝病病例中观察到的病变。对 14 株分离株的全基因组序列进行了分析，并将其毒力组与弯曲菌参考序列进行了比较，旨在研究毒力基因与观察到的病理损伤之间的可能联系。研究了 9 株空肠弯曲菌和 5 株大肠弯曲菌。这些弯曲菌与其他来源于鸡肝脏的分离株共有 12 个毒力因子，与参考基因组相比，它们还携带了更多与毒力相关的基因，包括编码与黏附和侵袭肠上皮细胞相关的因子的基因。我们的研究结果似乎表明，这 12 个常见的与毒力相关的基因，以及大量与黏附、侵袭和运动相关的毒力因子的存在，可能是导致我们的分离株在肠外传播和实质组织定植的原因，从而可能导致观察到的病理损伤。
