Document Type

Article

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Disciplines

Bacterial Infections and Mycoses | Bacteriology | Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology | Biotechnology | Food Microbiology | Genetics and Genomics | Genomics | Immunology and Infectious Disease | Medical Microbiology | Medicine and Health Sciences | Nutritional Epidemiology | Parasitology | Pathogenic Microbiology

Abstract

Infections with Campylobacter spp. pose a significant health burden worldwide. The significance of Campylobacter jejuni/Campylobacter coli infection is well appreciated but the contribution of non-C. jejuni/C. coli spp. to human gastroenteritis is largely unknown. In this study, we employed a two-tiered molecular study on 7194 patient faecal samples received by the Microbiology Department in Cork University Hospital during 2009. The first step, using EntericBio® (Serosep), a multiplex PCR system, detected Campylobacter to the genus level. The second step, utilizing Campylobacter species-specific PCR identified to the species level. A total of 340 samples were confirmed as Campylobacter genus positive, 329 of which were identified to species level with 33 samples containing mixed Campylobacter infections. Campylobacter jejuni, present in 72.4% of samples, was the most common species detected, however, 27.4% of patient samples contained non-C. jejuni/C. coli spp.; Campylobacter fetus (2.4%), Campylobacter upsaliensis (1.2%), Campylobacter hyointestinalis (1.5%), Campylobacter lari (0.6%) and an emerging species, Campylobacter ureolyticus (24.4%). We report a prominent seasonal distribution for campylobacteriosis (Spring with C. ureolyticus (March) preceeding slightly C. jejuni/C. coli (April/May).

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