Morgan Miller

Campylobacter is a leading cause of bacterially derived gastroenteritis in humans worldwide. Approximately 1.3 million individuals in the US are infected by Campylobacter spp. annually. The majority of Campylobacter infections in humans are due to the consumption and/ or mishandling of contaminated poultry products. It is estimated that ~60-80% of retail poultry products are contaminated with Campylobacter. Additionally, incidence of antibiotic resistance of Campylobacter is on the rise, including resistance to clinically important antibiotics. Campylobacter is a naturally competent bacterium, meaning it can take up naked DNA from its environment via natural transformation. In order to further asses the competence of Campylobacter, 20 isolates were obtained from various chicken sources across the US. The species of these isolates were determined via multiplex PCR and confirmed through the NCBI pipeline. Seven were found to be C. jejuni and the remaining 13 were C. coli. Antibiotic resistance assays were completed to determine the AMR profiles of each isolate. Dependent on the isolates AMR profile, they were then screened for competence either using nalidixic acid or streptomycin as a resistance marker. Using PATRIC (Pathosystems Resource Integration Center) online tool, the sequence type (ST) and clonal complex for each isolate was determined. Additional knowledge on the competence of Campylobacter spp. provides us insights to improve our understanding of how and why there has been an increase of certain antibiotic resistance within certain Campylobacter STs.