The abilities of 34 Campylobacter jejuni and 9 Campylobacter coli isolates recovered from retail meats to adhere to and invade human intestinal epithelial T84 cells were examined and compared with those of a well-characterized human clinical strain, C. jejuni 81-176, to better assess the pathogenic potential of these meat isolates. The meat isolates exhibited a wide range of adherence and invasion abilities; a few of the isolates adhered to and invaded T84 cells almost as well as did C. jejuni 81-176. There was a significant correlation between the adherence ability and the invasion ability of the Campylobacter isolates. The presence of eight putative virulence genes in these Campylobacter isolates that are potentially responsible for adherence and invasion or that encode cytolethal distending toxin was determined using PCR. All Campylobacter isolates possessed flaA, cadF, pldA, cdtA, cdtB, and cdtC, and most (91%) also contained the ciaB gene. However, the virB11 gene, carried by virulence plasmid pVir, was absent in almost all the Campylobacter isolates. Our findings indicated that C. jejuni and C. coli present in retail meat were diverse in their ability to adhere to and invade human intestinal epithelial cells and that the putative virulence genes were widespread among the Campylobacter isolates. Thus, despite of the presence of the putative virulence genes, only some but not all Campylobacter strains isolated from retail meat can effectively invade human intestinal epithelial cells in vitro.
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Research Article|
April 01 2006
Adherence to and Invasion of Human Intestinal Epithelial Cells by Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli Isolates from Retail Meat Products
JIE ZHENG;
JIE ZHENG
1Department of Nutrition & Food Science, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742
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JIANGHONG MENG;
JIANGHONG MENG
1Department of Nutrition & Food Science, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742
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SHAOHUA ZHAO;
SHAOHUA ZHAO
2Center for Veterinary Medicine, Office of Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Laurel, Maryland 20708, USA
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RUBY SINGH;
RUBY SINGH
2Center for Veterinary Medicine, Office of Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Laurel, Maryland 20708, USA
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WENXIA SONG
WENXIA SONG
*
3Department of Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742
* Author for correspondence. Tel: 301-405-7552; Fax: 301-314-9489; E-mail: wenxsong@umd.edu.
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J Food Prot (2006) 69 (4): 768–774.
Article history
Received:
May 31 2005
Accepted:
September 05 2005
Citation
JIE ZHENG, JIANGHONG MENG, SHAOHUA ZHAO, RUBY SINGH, WENXIA SONG; Adherence to and Invasion of Human Intestinal Epithelial Cells by Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli Isolates from Retail Meat Products. J Food Prot 1 April 2006; 69 (4): 768–774. doi: https://doi.org/10.4315/0362-028X-69.4.768
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