Genomic and antibiotic susceptibility characterization of Colombian isolates of Campylobacter jejuni causing acute diarrheal disease and those associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome captured by national surveillance.

Campylobacter jejuni, a Gram-negative, spiral-shaped bacillus, is a major cause of foodborne infections and acute gastroenteritis in humans worldwide. This bacterium usually causes moderate to severe watery diarrhea, sometimes with blood, which is usually self-limiting. However, infection with this bacterium can also be associated with complications such as bacteremia and post-infectious immune disorders such as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), which causes significant neurological sequelae and even death.
Currently, antibiotic treatment is not recommended for campylobacteriosis, except for immunocompromised patients, in whom an increasing number of C. jejuni isolates with decreased susceptibility to antibiotics is reported, leaving little or no treatment options. This problem highlights the potential risk of campylobacteriosis for public health.
The difficulty in culturing this microorganism and the lack of adequate diagnostic methods may be the main causes of the underestimation of the impact of campylobacteriosis (in terms of incidence and prevalence) in several countries. In addition, the limited availability of epidemiological and genomic data on C. jejuni, mainly in South American countries, hinders a comprehensive understanding of the natural history of the infection and impedes the understanding of the processes of transmission and spread of antibiotic resistance markers in this enteric bacterium. Whole genome sequencing emerges as one of the key tools to obtain information about the ability of C. jejuni to colonize, infect and adapt to human and animal hosts, as well as to identify associations between populations of this pathogen and the severity of the clinical pictures it produces, which are related, for example, to increased hospitalization rates, longer hospital stays and various clinical complications.
Thus, the objective of this work is to characterize the genome and antibiotic susceptibility profiles (ciprofloxacin, erythromycin and tetracycline) of C. jejuni in Colombia from isolates recovered from patients with acute diarrheal disease in a retrospective approach and from patients with GBS through a prospective component. This study will therefore contribute with Colombian data to the local and global epidemiology of the disease caused by C. jejuni, providing information about the genomic characteristics and antibiotic susceptibility profiles of this pathogenic species in the country, as well as in the generation of future tools to optimize the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of this infection.

Bacillus, infections, campylobacteriosis