Development of comparative genomic fingerprinting for molecular epidemiological studies of Campylobacter jejuni

This thesis reports the development of Comparative Genomic Fingerprinting (CGF), a rapid genotyping method for Campylobacter jejuni that assesses the conservation status of 20 genes previously described as having high intraspecies variability based on comparative genomics studies. This novel method for genotyping C. jejuni, CGF was validated two-fold. First, by comparison to flaA restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis, and second a subset of isolates was validated using two higher resolution CGF assays assessing 35 and 119 genes. CGF was then tested in a molecular epidemiological study of C. jejuni isolated from environmental, animal and human clinical samples from southern Alberta. Reservoirs of infection, subtypes associated with higher incidence of human infection, and the persistence of prevalent subtypes in animal/environmental reservoirs were identified. This thesis demonstrates that CGF analysis is robust and can be used to rapidly assess genetic similarity of C. jejuni isolates and to detect epidemiologically relevant clonal groups.

Authors

• Ross, Susan
• University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science

• Campylobacter jejuni -- Research -- Alberta, Southern
• Campylobacter infections -- Research -- Alberta, Southern
• Molecular epidemiology
• Dissertations, Academic

Identifier

hdl:10133/2485

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.uleth.ca:10133/2485