First comparison of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli isolated from humans and poultry in Italy: preliminary results.

The present study was undertaken to evaluate the genetic relationship between C. jejuni and C. coli strains isolated from humans and broilers in Northern Italy. Human isolates were recovered from clinical cases of acute gastroenteritis, whereas chicken strains were isolated from broilers in commercial farms. Molecular typing was carried out by Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) according to the seven-loci schemes employing the primer sets and the experimental conditions suggested by the Campylobacter PubMLST database. A wide genetic diversity among campylobacters isolated from both humans and chickens was detected, with a higher diversity in human isolates compared to chickens. A high number of new sequence types was found in both human and chicken strains, whereas a low level of genetic relatedness was noticed between human and chicken campylobacters. Despite what is commonly reported, according to our findings chickens seem not to be the predominant source of human campylobacteriosis.