#c. jejuni

[i-eat-worlds]

good morning to everyone here but C. Jejuni

[betterknowamicrobe]

Campylobacter jejuni

I've got turkey on the brain.  Let's talk about a poultry-borne pathogen.

Campylobacter jejuni is one of the chief causes of food poisoning in the United States.  In fact, it is said to cause more disease than Salmonella and Shigella combined!  Flies, cattle, and birds can carry the bacterium.  This is one reason you've got to cook your meat well and avoid cross-contamination.  If you need to call on the Butterball hotline for help, so be it.

The organism is a Gram-negative curved rod.  It is motile and microaerophilic.  Particular media such as "camp agar" are used to identify C. jejuni; it grows best around 42°C, which (not) coincidentally is the body temperature of many birds.

Thankfully, most infections with C. jejuni resolve themselves.  The bacterium is also sensitive to antibiotics, which can lessen the severity of campylobacteriosis.  In many cases, then, the bacterium is just an inconvenience and doesn't do much harm.  On occasion, though, it can be a causal factor of Guillan-Barre syndrome.  The pathogenesis of this disease is still being studied, but it appears to be a result of cross-reactivity -- your body makes antibodies against the pathogen, then confuses a similar host molecule for the invader and attacks it as well.

Finally, this should go without saying, but if you need to castrate an animal, please don't do it with your teeth.  The most notable recent case of C. jejuni enteritis came from just such an event.