Abstract:
Poultry are recognized as a main reservoir of Campylobacter spp. However, longitudinal studies investigating
the persistence of Campylobacter on commercial meat turkeys are rare. The objectives of this study were to
determine the prevalence, antimicrobial susceptibility, and persistence of genotypically related strains of
Campylobacter spp. recovered from three commercial turkey farms in Ohio belonging to a single producer.
Eight hundred ten samples were collected from birds aged 1 week to slaughter, consisting of 750 fecal
droppings and 60 ceca at slaughter. Overall Campylobacter prevalence was 55.9%. Multiplex polymerase chain
reaction (PCR) confirmed 72.3% of all isolates as C. coli, 5.3% as C. jejuni, 10.6% as both, and 11.9% as other
Campylobacter spp. PCR restriction fragment length polymorphism of the flaA gene subtyping detected 70
types—62 for C. coli and 8 for C. jejuni isolates—with most (80%) of flaA-types constituting farm homogeneous
groups. Multilocus sequence typing of 99 selected Campylobacter isolates resulted in 23 sequence types
(STs), consisting of 8 STs for C. jejuni and 15 STs for C. coli isolates. Six novel STs—four for C. jejuni and
two—for C. coli, were detected. In a subset of isolates (n = 98) tested for antimicrobial resistance, the most
common resistance was to tetracycline (95%), followed by azithromycin (43%), while 42% and 18% of the
isolates were resistant to ciprofloxacin and erythromycin, respectively. All isolates were susceptible to florfenicol.
C. coli isolates displayed a higher proportion of resistance than C. jejuni to most antimicrobials. This
study highlights the high prevalence, genotypic diversity, and antimicrobial resistance of Campylobacter spp. in
commercial turkey from farm to slaughter.
