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. 2014 Sep 8;15(1):768.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-15-768.

Genome analysis of Campylobacter jejuni strains isolated from a waterborne outbreak

Joana Revez, Ann-Katrin Llarena, Thomas Schott, Markku Kuusi, Marjaana Hakkinen, Rauni Kivistö, Marja-Liisa Hänninen, Mirko Rossi  1
Affiliations

Genome analysis of Campylobacter jejuni strains isolated from a waterborne outbreak

Joana Revez et al. BMC Genomics. .

Abstract

Background: Waterborne Campylobacter jejuni outbreaks are common in the Nordic countries, and PFGE (pulsed field gel electrophoresis) remains the genotyping method of choice in outbreak investigations. However, PFGE cannot assess the clonal relationship between isolates, leading to difficulties in molecular epidemiological investigations. Here, we explored the applicability of whole genome sequencing to outbreak investigation by re-analysing three C. jejuni strains (one isolated from water and two from patients) from an earlier resolved Finnish waterborne outbreak from the year 2000.

Results: One of the patient strains had the same PFGE profile, as well as an identical overall gene synteny and three polymorphisms in comparison with the water strain. However, the other patient isolate, which showed only minor differences in the PFGE pattern relative to the water strain, harboured several polymorphisms as well as rearrangements in the integrated element CJIE2. We reconstructed the genealogy of these strains with ClonalFrame including in the analysis four C. jejuni isolated from chicken in 2012 having the same PFGE profile and sequence type as the outbreak strains. The three outbreak strains exhibited a paraphyletic relationship, implying that the drinking water from 2000 was probably contaminated with at least two different, but related, C. jejuni strains.

Conclusions: Our results emphasize the capability of whole genome sequencing to unambiguously resolve the clonal relationship between isolates of C. jejuni in an outbreak situation and evaluate the diversity of the C. jejuni population.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
BLAST atlas produced using BLAST Ring Image Generator v 0.95. In the middle, a genome atlas of C. jejuni 4031 strain is shown, around which BLAST lanes are shown. Every lane corresponds to a genome. From in to out: GC skew; GC content; BLASTN pairwise comparison of C. jejuni genomes: IHV116260 (human waterborne outbreak); IHV116292 (human waterborne outbreak); BIGS0004, ST-45 (chicken); 55037, ST-45 (chicken); 4028, ST-1971 (chicken farm environment); M1, ST-137 (human); 327, ST-230 (turkey); 81116, ST-267 (human); RM1221, ST-354 (human); annotation: green, CRISPR/Cas locus; red, CPS locus/genes; purple, Flagellar locus; blue, LOS locus; grey, Campylobacter integrate elements; black, locus_tags of C. jejuni 4031 (BN867_).
Figure 2
Figure 2
A collinear BLASTN comparison of the CJIE2 elements and the up- and downstream adjacent regions of C. jejuni strains (B) RM1221, (C) IHV116292, (D) 4031 with the corresponding region in C. jejuni strain (A) NCTC 11168 and (E) M1. Colour scheme: red, CJIE2; blue, fucose locus; dark grey, Cj0967-Cj0975-homolog cluster; green, conserved genes up- and downstream the fucose cluster; orange, conserved genes up- and downstream the CJIE2; pink, conserved genes up- and downstream the Cj0967-Cj0975-homolog cluster; grey, ammonium transporter.
Figure 3
Figure 3
ClonalFrame genealogy and PFGE profiles of C. jejuni strain 4031, IHV116260, IHV116292, 6236/12, 6237/12, 6538/12 and 6497/12.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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