Survival of Campylobacter jejuni within Acanthamoeba polyphaga; a possible transmission route.

Mr Daniel Dahlgren X 1, Mrs Diana Axelsson Olsson - 1, Dr Tina Broman - 2,3, Mr Jonas Waldenström - 4, Dr Martin Holmberg - 5, Dr Björn Olsen – 2

1: Department of Clinical Microbiology, Calmar county hospital, Sweden
2: Department of Infectious Diseases, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
3: Department of Molecular Biology, Umeå university, Umeå, Sweden
4: Department of Animal Ecology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden Affiliation
5: Department of Medical Sciences, section for Infectious Diseases, Uppsala University Hospital Uppsala, Sweden

The epidemiology of Campylobacter jejuni infections is still partly unknown, despite intense research during the past decades. Known risk factors have been shown to explain only a proportion of human cases and thus the existence of additional reservoirs in nature is plausible. C. jejuni seems to survive for a limited time in water, still water-borne transmission is not rarely suspected. In order to investigate the potential role of protozooans as reservoirs and vectors of C. jejuni, suspensions of C. jejuni, obtained both from clinical samples and from wild birds, were incubated together with Acanthamoeba polyphaga. The presence of bacterial cells inside amoebic vacuoles was detected by microscopy. Bacterial cells incubated with amoebae at 4°C were culturable for up to four times longer than cells kept in growth medium alone. Incubation of C. jejuni with amoebae at 37°C caused lysis of amoebae and an increase of bacterial counts as compare to incubation of bacteria alone, which indicates that C. jejuni may have the ability to multiply within amoebic vacuoles. Hence, amoebas could potentially be a reservoir for C. jejuni in aquatic environments, and a plausible vector for water-borne infections.

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