doi: 10.17113/ftb.54.04.16.4647 

Prevalence of Thermotolerant Campylobacter spp. in Chicken Meat in Croatia and Multilocus Sequence Typing of a Small Subset of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli Isolates

Marina Mikulić^1*, Andrea Humski¹, Bela Njari², Mario Ostović², Sanja Duvnjak¹ and Željko Cvetnić¹
 

¹Croatian Veterinary Institute, Savska cesta 143, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia
²University of Zagreb, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Heinzelova 55, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Article history:
Received    February 12, 2016
Accepted   May 25, 2016

Key words:
thermotolerant Campylobacter, chicken meat in Croatia, prevalence, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) method

Summary:
In order to detect thermotolerant Campylobacter spp., 241 samples of fresh chicken meat, at retail in Croatia, were analysed according to a standard method, followed by biochemical test and molecular polymerase chain reaction/restriction enzyme analysis for exact species determination. Campylobacter spp. prevalence was 73.86 %. Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli were isolated from 53.53 and 15.35 % of the samples, respectively. In 4.98 % of isolates thermotolerant Campylobacter spp. were not determined. The multi locus sequence typing method was used to evaluate genetic diversity of eight Campylobacter jejuni and four Campylobacter coli isolates. To our knowledge, these results of genotyping provided the first data on the presence of sequence types (STs) and clonal complexes (CCs) of Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli isolates in Croatia. By applying the multilocus sequence typing, a new allele of tkt gene locus was discovered and marked tkt508. The C. jejuni ST 6182 and C. coli ST 6183 genotypes were described for the first time, and all other identified genotypes were clustered in the previously described sequence types and clonal complexes. These fi ndings provide useful information on the prevalence and epidemiology of Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli in Croatia.

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