Campylobacter species distribution in outdoor pigs: Oral presentation O44

Summary

A colony blot hybridization method with a digoxigenin-(DIG)labelled nucleotide probe was developed to enable Campylobacter jejuni species-specific identification of colonies present in minority. C. jejuni is the dominant cause of human cases of Campylobacteriosis. In contrast, C. coli is normally dominant in conventional pigs but it can be speculated that outdoor pigs host more C. jejuni due to a closer contact to the environment and wild-life where C. jejuni is pre-dominant. Since C. jejuni is considered more virulent to humans a potential shift towards C. jejuni in pigs may infer an importance to food safety. Individual pigs are often colonized with several Campylobacter strains. However, with conventional culturing techniques only few colonies are typically identified to the species level and thus C. jejuni will only rarely be isolated if present in minority. Using the hybridization method it was possible to identify C. jejuni colonies in 4 out of 20 faecal samples from finisher pigs.