Phenotypic Characters and Molecular Epidemiology of Campylobacter Jejuni in East China

In this study, we investigated the distribution, phenotypic and molecular typing characters of Campylobacter jejuni in domestic fowl, and livestock populations in East China, to provide some reference for researches on its molecular epidemiology. A total of 1250 samples were collected from different animal sources, and C. jejuni strains were then isolated and tested for antibiotic sensitivity. Antibiotics-resistance gene and pathogenic genes were detected by polymerase chain reaction. Phylogenic analysis on the C. jejuni strains was performed by multilocus sequence typing (MLST) method. The results showed that 108 out of the 1250 samples (mean 8.64%) were C. jejuni positive. These 108 C. jejuni strains were highly sensitive to antibiotics such as chloramphenicol, amoxicillin, amikacin, cefotaxime, and azithromycin, whereas they were highly resistant to antibiotics such as cefoperazone, cotrimoxazole, cefamandole, sulfamethoxazole, and cefradine. Pathogenicity related gene identification indicated that the mean carrying rate of adhesion related gene cadF and racR, flagellin gene flaA, toxin regulating gene cdtA, cdtB, cdtC, wlaN and virB11, heat shock proteins and transferring proteins related genes dnaJ and ceuE, CiaB and pldA were 92.45%, 38.69%, 73.58%, 71.70%, 52.83%, 96.23%, 12.26%, 1.89%, 0.94%, 65.09%, 39.62% and 9.43%, respectively. A total of 58.82% of these strains contained more than 6 pathogenicity-related genes. MLST typed 58 ST types from the 108 isolated C. jejuni strains, including 24 new types, and ST-21 was the major type, accounting for 39.3% of the total strains.