Ruminant and chicken: important sources of campylobacteriosis in France despite a variation of source attribution in 2009 and 2015

Amandine Thépault (1, 2) , Valérie Rose (1) , Ségolène Quesne (1) , Typhaine Poezevara (1) , Véronique Béven (1) , Edouard Hirchaud (1) , Fabrice Touzain (1) , Pierrick Lucas (1) , Guillaume Méric (3) , Leonardos Mageiros (4) , Samuel K Sheppard (3, 5) , Marianne Chemaly (1) , Katell Rivoal (1)

1 Laboratoire de Ploufragan - Plouzané
2 UR - Université de Rennes
3 The Milner Centre for Evolution, Department of Biology and Biotechnology
4 Institute of Life Science, College of Medicine
5 Departement of Zoology, University of Oxford

Pathogen source attribution studies are a useful tool for identifying reservoirs of human infection. Based on Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) data, such studies have identified chicken as a major source of C. jejuni human infection. The use of whole genome sequence-based typing methods offers potential to improve the precision of attribution beyond that which is possible from 7 MLST loci. Using published data and 156 novel C. jejuni genomes sequenced in this study, we performed probabilistic host source attribution of clinical C. jejuni isolates from France using three types of genotype data: comparative genomic fingerprints; MLST genes; 15 host segregating genes previously identified by whole genome sequencing. Consistent with previous studies, chicken was an important source of campylobacteriosis in France (31-63% of clinical isolates assigned). There was also evidence that ruminants are a source (22-55% of clinical isolates assigned), suggesting that further investigation of potential transmission routes from ruminants to human would be useful. Additionally, we found evidence of environmental and pet sources. However, the relative importance as sources varied according to the year of isolation and the genotyping technique used. Annual variations in attribution emphasize the dynamic nature of zoonotic transmission and the need to perform source attribution regularly.

Keywords: Animals; Bacterial Typing Techniques; Campylobacter Infections; Campylobacter jejuni; Multilocus Sequence Typing; Ruminants; Whole Genome Sequencing

Domains: Veterinary medicine and animal Health; Bacteriology; Santé publique et épidémiologie

Amandine Thépault, Valérie Rose, Ségolène Quesne, Typhaine Poezevara, Véronique Béven, et al.. Ruminant and chicken: important sources of campylobacteriosis in France despite a variation of source attribution in 2009 and 2015. Scientific Reports, 2018, 8 (1), pp.9305. ⟨10.1038/s41598-018-27558-z⟩. ⟨anses-01931182⟩