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. 2024 Jan 5;13(1):54.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens13010054.

Enteropathogenic Yersinia with Public Health Relevance Found in Dogs and Cats in Finland

Maria Fredriksson-Ahomaa  1 , Thomas Grönthal  2 , Viivi Heljanko  1 , Venla Johansson  1 , Merja Rantala  3 , Annamari Heikinheimo  1   4 , Riikka Laukkanen-Ninios  1
Affiliations

Enteropathogenic Yersinia with Public Health Relevance Found in Dogs and Cats in Finland

Maria Fredriksson-Ahomaa et al. Pathogens. .

Abstract

Yersiniosis is a common zoonotic enteric disease among humans, which has been linked to pigs and contaminated food, especially pork. The epidemiology of yersiniosis is still obscure, and studies on yersiniosis in pets are very scarce. In this study, we performed pheno- and genotypic characterisation of 50 Yersinia strains isolated from pets in Finland between 2012 and 2023. Y. enterocolitica 4/O:3/ST135, the most common type in human yersiniosis, was also the most common type (68%) found in clinical faecal samples in our study. Also, human pathogenic Y. enterocolitica 2/O:9/ST139 and Y. pseudotuberculosis O:1/ST9 and O:1/ST42 strains carrying all essential pathogenic genes were identified. Three Y. enterocolitica 4/O:3/ST9 strains were multi-drug-resistant and two of them were highly related, showing one allelic difference (AD) with core genome multi-locus sequence typing. Non-pathogenic, genotypically highly diverse Y. enterocolitica 1A strains, showing more than 1000 ADs and missing the essential virulence genes, were also recognised in dogs and cats. Our study demonstrates that pets can excrete human pathogenic Yersinia in their faeces and may serve as an infection source for human yersiniosis, especially in families with small children in close contact with their pets.

Keywords: Yersinia enterocolitica; Yersinia pseudotuberculosis; characteristics; pets; resistance; virulence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Number of Y. enterocolitica (Ye) and Y. pseudotuberculosis (Yp) strains from pets isolated between 2012 and 2023 in Finland. * Distribution of four cat strains.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Minimum spanning tree (MST) of 26 Yersinia enterocolitica 4/O:3 strains based on cgMLST (3839 targets). Number of allelic differences (ADs) between the strains are indicated on the connecting lines. Nodes are numbered with sequence types (CTs) according to Table 5. Clusters are shaded in grey and a cluster distance threshold of a maximum of 10 ADs was used. CTs including more than one strain are marked with different colours.
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