ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Food Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1599555
This article is part of the Research TopicFood Safety in the Context of One Health: Current Trends, Challenges and PerspectivesView all 5 articles
Genomic analysis and antimicrobial resistance in human- and poultry- derived Campylobacter jejuni isolates from Hangzhou, China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Tonglu County Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Tonglu County Health Inspection Center), Hangzhou, China
- 2Medical Laboratory, Hangzhou First People's Hospital Tonglu Campus, Hangzhou, China
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Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni) is a zoonotic pathogen and is the most prevalent foodborne pathogen globally. The increasing antimicrobial resistance and gene mutation pose a threat to public health and trigger us to enhance surveillance. This study illustrated the antimicrobial resistance profiles, virulence factors, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) profiles of 47 C. jejuni isolates collected from human stool and raw poultry meat samples between 2022 and 2023 in Hangzhou, China. 88.9% (16/18) human-derived and 82.9% (24/29) poultry-derived C. jejuni displayed multidrug resistance profiles, nalidixic acid+ciprofloxacin+tetracycline was prevalent among them. Relatively high rates of resistance to florfenicol were observed in C. jejuni, 38.9% (7/18) from human sources and 44.8% (13/29) from poultry sources. Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD) and ResFinder database showed gyrA (T86I) was the dominant factor in quinolones resistance while a rare gyrA (T86V) was found in one poultry-derived C. jejuni. All 37 tetracycline-resistant C. jejuni strains harbored the tet(O) gene. All 20 florfenicol-resistant C. jejuni didn’t have any related genes. Several key virulence factor genes associated with adherence (cadF, pebA, jlpA, porA), invasion (CiaB, CiaC), capsule biosynthesis/transport genes (kpsF, kpsD, kpsE, kpsM, kpsC, Cj1419c) and lipooligosaccharide (LOS) biosynthesis genes (Cj1135, waaV, waaF, htrB, gmhA, gmhB) were conserved in C. jejuni. MLST analysis revealed high genetic diversity, identifying 28 sequence types (STs), including 3 novel STs, 20 of which belonged to 10 clonal complexes (CCs), and 8 were unassigned. CC-464 and CC-21 strains carried the most virulence genes, correlating with clinical severity, yet represent a minority in local isolates. The most abundant clonal complexes were CC-443 (21.3%, 10/47) and CC-574 (19.1%, 9/47), mainly isolated from poultry. These findings highlight that C. jejuni isolates in Hangzhou had high genetic diversity and multidrug resistance, CC-443 and CC-574 were the predominant strains. It is necessary to monitor human-poultry transmission and emerging resistance phenotypes.
Keywords: Campylobacter jejuni, antimicrobial resistance, virulence genes, Multilocus Sequence Typing, whole genome sequencing
Received: 25 Mar 2025; Accepted: 02 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Wang, Zheng and Zhu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mingfang Yang, Tonglu County Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Tonglu County Health Inspection Center), Hangzhou, China
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