Investigation of a Campylobacter jejuni outbreak by serotyping and chromosomal restriction endonuclease analysis

Fifty Campylobacter jejuni isolates, including 29 from humans associated with an outbreak of enteritis, 20 from cattle, and 1 from a milk source, were serotyped on the basis of extractable thermostable antigens and examined by bacterial chromosomal restriction endonuclease digest analysis. Serotyping showed specific differences between the human isolates and the milk isolates, but each of these generally, although not consistently, reacted with 4 of the 42 C. jejuni typing antisera. Restriction patterns of all of the human isolates and some of the cattle isolates were indistinguishable, confirming the suspected link between the cattle and the human outbreak. The single milk isolate had a restriction pattern unlike those of the human isolates, and therefore its involvement in the transmission of infection from the cattle to the humans could not be confirmed.