First isolation report of Arcobacter cryaerophilus from a human diarrhea sample in Costa Rica

ABSTRACT Arcobacter cryaerophilus is an emerging enteropathogen and potential zoonotic agent transmitted by food and water. In Costa Rica, this bacterium has not been associated with cases of human gastroenteritis, even though it has been isolated from farm animals, especially poultry. This paper reports the first isolation of A. cryaerophilus from a human case of bloody watery diarrhea and the virulence genes associated with this isolate

Towards a typing strategy for Arcobacter species isolated from humans and animals and assessment of the in vitro genomic stability.

&lt;p&gt;Arcobacter species have a widespread distribution with a broad range of animal hosts and environmental reservoirs, and are increasingly associated with human illness. To elucidate the routes of infection, several characterization methods such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), amplified fragment-length polymorphism, and enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC)-PCR have already been applied, but without proper validation or comparison. At present, no criterion standard typing method or strategy has been proposed. Therefore, after the validation of PFGE, those commonly applied typing methods were compared for the characterization of six human- and animal-associated Arcobacter species. With a limited number of isolates to be characterized, PFGE with restriction by KpnI is proposed as the first method of choice. However, ERIC-PCR represents a more convenient genomic fingerprinting technique when a large number of isolates is involved. Therefore, a first clustering of similar patterns obtained after ERIC-PCR, with a subsequent typing of some representatives per ERIC cluster by PFGE, is recommended. As multiple genotypes are commonly isolated from the same host and food, genomic plasticity has been suggested. The in vitro genomic stability of Arcobacter butzleri and A. cryaerophilus was assessed under two temperatures and two oxygen concentrations. Variability in the genomic profile of A. cryaerophilus was observed after different passages for different strains at 37°C under microaerobic conditions. The bias due to these genomic changes must be taken into account in the evaluation of the relationship of strains.&lt;/p&gt;</p

Occurrence of putative virulence genes in Arcobacter species isolated from humans and animals.

Interest for arcobacters in veterinary and human public health has increased since the first report of the isolation of arcobacters from food of animal origin. Since then, studies worldwide have reported the occurrence of arcobacters on food and in food-production animals and have highlighted the possible transmission of especially A. butzleri to the human population. In humans, arcobacters are associated with enteritis and septicemia. To assess their clinical relevance for humans and animals, evaluation of potential virulence factors is required. However, up to now, little is known about the mechanisms of pathogenicity. Because of their close phylogenetic affiliation to the foodborne pathogen Campylobacter and their similar clinical manifestations, the presence of nine putative Campylobacter virulence genes (cadF, ciaB, cj1349, hecA, hecB, irgA, mviN, pldA, tlyA) previously identified in the recent Arcobacter butzleri ATCC 49616 genome sequence, was determined in a large set of human and animal Arcobacter butzleri, Arcobacter cryaerophilus and Arcobacter skirrowii strains after development of rapid and accurate PCR-assays and confirmed by sequencing and dot-blot hybridization.JOURNAL ARTICLEinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe