Campylobacter jejuni in Foods: Its Occurrence, Isolation from Foods, and Injury

Abstract

The following aspects of Campylobacter jejuni has been reviewed: characteristics of C. jejuni, its occurrence in foods, methods to quantitatively recover the organism from food, and heat injury and freeze-thaw stress of C. jejuni. C. jejuni can be heat injured in 0.1 M potassium phosphate buffer at 46°C. Heat injury can be demonstrated as the differential count between brucella agar plus ferrous sulfate, sodium metabisulfite and sodium pyruvate (FBP) and brilliant green 2% bile broth agar plus FBP. Heat-injured C. jejuni will grow on brucella agar containing either of the three antibiotic mixtures typically used to isolate C. jejuni. Heat-injured C. jejuni will repair (regain dye and bile tolerance) in brucella broth plus FBP. C. jejuni can be freeze-thaw stressed. This stress is demonstrated as a sensitivity to the antibiotic polymyxin B or incubation at 42°C. Addition of succinate and cysteine increased recovery of freeze-thaw stressed C. jejuni. Although the presence of injured/stressed C. jejuni in foods has not yet been detected, methods are now available to begin this search. The injury/stress process may explain the often encountered difficulty in isolating C. jejuni, especially low numbers, from foods.