Dairy farm Campylobacteraceae

Abstract

Infection with Campylobacter is considered to be the most common bacterial cause of human gastroenteritis worldwide. In light of the dramatic increase of antibiotic resistant bacteria, alternative solutions including biological controls such as bacteriophage therapy and bacteriophage biosanitization are being considered. One way in which campylobacters enter the human food chain is through consumption of contaminated raw milk. An updated study of the ability of campylobacters to survive in milk, including species other than C. jejuni, was carried out. Isolation of bacteriophages from bovine slurry, with potential for biocontrol and therapeutic purposes was attempted using conventional methods. Campylobacter and Arcobacter hosts were isolated and characterised, including genome sequencing, from the same environment. The method used for this purpose was proven efficacious for porcine slurry; however, no lytic phage were isolated from bovine samples. During the isolation experiments unusual plaques were formed on the lawn of the C. hyointestinalis S12 host strain. The causative agent of this lytic activity was found to be due to a new predatory bacterium, which was characterised with respect host range and genome sequence. Phylogenetic analysis placed the new bacterium in the family Oceanospirillaceae and the name Venatorbacter cucullus gen. nov. sp. nov proposed