Antimicrobial and biocide resistance in Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli

Resumen del trabajo presentado a: "The Food Factor I Barcelona Conference", 2-4 November 2016, Barcelona (Spain).Campylobacter is the leading cause of bacterial food-borne gastroenteritis worldwide and the species Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni) and Campylobacter coli (C. coli) cause more than 95% of the infections attributed to this genus. Several sources of Campylobacter infection in humans have been suggested, but the most common is mainly associated with the consumption and/or handling of poultry meat, especially fresh broiler meat. Campylobacteriosis is characterized by a mild enteritis and is a self-limiting disease that does not usually require antimicrobial treatment. However, when it is associated with extra intestinal manifestations or is present in young children, pregnant women, or immunocompromised patients, it does require antimicrobial treatment. However, the rise in the incidence of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant strains of Campylobacter makes this illness increasingly difficult to treat (Zhang and Plummer, 2008). Also, under-dosing of applied disinfectants and insufficient cleaning before disinfection can also significantly reduce the efficacy of disinfectants in the food industry, increasing the resistance of Campylobacter to biocides. In the present work, 40 Campylobacter strains were isolated from the chicken food chain and from campylobacteriosis patients. 82% of isolates were identified as C. jejuni and 18% were C. coli. In general terms, isolates from hospital were more resistant than food chain strains to 14 antibiotics from 8 different families. C. coli strains from both origins had the higher resistance, and some multi drug resistant (MRS) strains were found. Some strains from hospital were resistant to erythromycin and aminoglycosides, the first-choice treatment for campylobacteriosis. The biocide resistance was also investigated, using sodium hypochlorite as example for chlorinated compounds, benzalkonium chloride as quaternary ammonium, and hydrogen peroxide such as oxidant compound. The results obtained showed that all the strains were more resistant to sodium hypochlorite than the others biocides, and again C. coli strains were particularly resistant to hydrogen peroxide. Finally, we evaluate the capacity to form biofilm (CFB) in abiotic surfaces for the different strains of Campylobacter. Although no differences were found among clinical and food chain strains, C. coli had significantly higher values of CFB compared with C. jejuni strains. The results obtained in this work had shown the emergence of C. coli strains with resistance to antibiotics and biocides and with the capacity to form high amount of biofilms in abiotic surfaces.Peer Reviewe