Trojan horses may protect Campylobacter
Scientists at a recent meeting of the Society for General
Microbiology believe that the food poisoning bug Campylobacter is lurking in
poultry farms, protected by Trojan horses - in the form of
Campylobacter bacteria are still common on intensive poultry farms in spite
of rigorous cleaning and disinfectant regimes, and many strains are resistant to
antibiotics, creating problems for doctors trying to treat patients with this
type of food poisoning.
Campylobacter, primarily C. jejuni,
is the third leading cause of death from foodborne infections in the world. Campylobacteriosis can be caught by eating undercooked
infected chicken, or food cross-contaminated by infected chicken.
could not understand how Campylobacter could survive since it is usually killed
by disinfectants," says Dr Bill Snelling of the University of Ulster in
Coleraine, Northern Ireland.
"We discovered that the bacteria are
hiding in Trojan horses called protozoa. This group of larger microbes, which
live in water and feed on bacteria, are like the ones you can see through
microscopes when you go pond dipping as a child," says Dr Snelling. "We found
many different protozoa in the farm water supplies of intensively reared
poultry, and we also found the Campylobacter bacteria".
experiments showed that protozoa actually protect the Campylobacter - the
bacteria were absorbed, but not killed or digested as expected. The bacteria
could stay alive inside the protozoa for up to two days, even with the addition
Now that the scientists know where the organism
hides, they are hoping to identify better ways to kill it, eliminating it from
the food chain.
The scientists believe that Campylobacter may not be
the only disease-causing bacteria using protozoa as a protective mechanism.
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