A systematic review of source attribution of human campylobacteriosis using multilocus sequence typing

This work was supported by the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency [grant number FS101013]; the Wellcome Trust [grant numbers 087622 to M.C.J.M., 072782MA to N.D.M.]; and National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Gastrointestinal Infections at the University of Oxford in partnership with Public Health England (PHE). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the FSA, NHS, the NIHR, the Department of Health or Public Health England.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Operationalising factors that explain the emergence of infectious diseases : A case study of the human campylobacteriosis epidemic

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Mining whole genome sequence data to efficiently attribute individuals to source populations

Acknowledgements: The Campylobacter work in this project was supported by Food Standards Scotland project FSS00017 and the Scottish Government (Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division) project A13559368.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Use of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Understand the Biology of Campylobacter jejuni

Funding Information: This work was supported by a scholarship grant from the University of Aberdeen and Curtin University.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Phylogeographic analysis reveals multiple international transmission events have driven the global emergence of Escherichia coli O157:H7

This work was supported by: Scotland by Food Standards Scotland [Grant Number FS102029] and University of Aberdeen; New Zealand, Institute of Environmental Science and Research; Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada; United States, United States Department of AgriculturePeer reviewedPostprin

To what extent does hydrological connectivity control dynamics of faecal indicator organisms in streams? Initial hypothesis testing using a tracer-aided model

Acknowledgments Funding from the Scottish Government Hydro Nation Scholars Programme is gratefully acknowledged. Many thanks to Mark Speed and Audrey Innes for collecting and analysing the samples from 2008/9, as part of work funded by the Levrhulme Trust. Thanks also to Christian Birkel for discussions in relation to the tracer-aided hydrological component of the model. Please contact the authors for access to the data used in this paper.Peer reviewedPostprin

Evidence for phenotypic plasticity among multihost Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli lineages, obtained using ribosomal multilocus sequence typing and Raman spectroscopy

Closely related bacterial isolates can display divergent phenotypes. This can limit the usefulness of phylogenetic studies for understanding bacterial ecology and evolution. Here we compare phenotyping, based on Raman spectrometric analysis of cellular composition, and phylogenetic classification by Ribosomal Multilocus Sequence Typing (rMLST) in 108 isolates of the zoonotic pathogens Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli. Automatic Relevance Determination (ARD) was used to identify informative peaks in the Raman spectra that could be used to distinguish strains in taxonomic and host source groups (species, clade, clonal complex, isolate source/host). Phenotypic characterization based on Raman spectra showed a degree of agreement with genotypic classification using rMLST, with segregation accuracy between species (83.95 %), clade (in C. coli, 98.41 %) and to some extent clonal complex (73.8 % C. jejuni ST-21 and ST-45 complexes) being achieved. This confirmed the utility of Raman spectroscopy for lineage classification and the correlation between genotypic and phenotypic classification. In parallel analysis, relatively distantly related isolates (different clonal complexes) were assigned the correct host origin irrespective of the clonal origin (74.1 - 97.0% accuracy) based upon different Raman peaks. This suggests that the phenotypic characteristics, from which the phenotypic signal is derived, are not fixed by clonal descent but are influenced by the host environment and may change as strains move between hosts