| Abstrakt: |
AIMS: To investigate the prevalence ofCampylobacterspp. andC. jejuniin dog faecal material collected from dog walkways in the city of Palmerston North, New Zealand, and to characterise theC. jejuniisolates by multilocus sequence typing (MLST) andporA andflaA antigen gene typing. METHODS: A total of 355 fresh samples of dogs faeces were collected from bins provided for the disposal of dog faeces in 10 walkways in Palmerston North, New Zealand, between August 2008–July 2009. PresumptiveCampylobactercolonies, cultured on modified charcoal cefoperazone deoxycholate plates, were screened for genusCampylobacterandC. jejuniby PCR. TheC. jejuniisolates were subsequently characterised by MLST andporA andflaA typing, andC. jejunisequence types (ST) were assigned. RESULTS: Of the 355 samples collected, 72 (20 (95% CI=16–25)%) were positive forCampylobacterspp. and 22 (6 (95% CI=4–9)%) were positive forC. jejuni. Of the 22C. jejuni isolates, 19 were fully typed by MLST. Ten isolates were assigned to the clonal complex ST-45 and three to ST-52. The allelic combinations of ST-45/flaA 21/porA 44 (n=3), ST-45/flaA 22/porA 53 (n=3) and ST-52/flaA 57/porA 905 (n=3) were most frequent. CONCLUSIONS: The successful isolation ofC. jejunifrom canine faecal samples collected from faecal bins provides evidence thatCampylobacterspp. may survive outside the host for at least several hours despite requiring fastidious growth conditions in culture. The results show that dogs carryC. jejunigenotypes (ST-45, ST-50, ST-52 and ST-696) that have been reported in human clinical cases. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Although these results do not provide any evidence either for the direction of infection or for dogs being a potential risk factor for human campylobacteriosis, dog owners are advised to practice good hygiene with respect to their pets to reduce potential exposure to infection. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] |
