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Hello everyone. My name
is Dr. Sarah Fouch.
Welcome to this short recording
where we will be
considering Campylobacter,
the clinical symptoms that
this organism is associated with
and the virulence
factors it produces
to make it such a
successful pathogen.
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When we think about
Campylobacter,
it is a short organism
that has a comma shape.
They almost look curved.
There are 15 species
and six subspecies.
However, only 12 are associated
with human infection.
As with many of the
other organisms that
we have discussed
in this series,
Campylobacter can be typed using
their O capsular and
flagellar antigens.
We've known about Campylobacter
for a little while.
However, it's still
quite a new infection.
In 1931, they were described as
microaerophilic curved rods
in the blood of children
with acute dysentery.
What do I mean by
microaerophilic?
What I want you to do is imagine
I am drawing four test
tubes in front of you.
In the first test tube,
I'm going to show you where
aerobic organisms will grow.
These will grow at the
top of the test tube,
because they require oxygen.
Now, if we think about
the second test tube,
this will be an
anaerobic organism.
They will grow at the
bottom of the test tube,
because oxygen is toxic to them,
and they can't survive in
the presence of oxygen.
Now, if we think about
facultatively anaerobic organisms,
these will be in
test tube number 3,
and they will grow everywhere
because they can grow
in both the presence or
the absence of oxygen.
In the fourth test tube, we will
think about microaerophilic
conditions.
Now these organisms will grow a
little way down from the
top of the test tube.
The reason is because they
need oxygen, but they
need it at a lower level
than that of the atmosphere.
They can't grow at the very top
because that level of
oxygen is toxic to them,
but they will need the oxygen
just at a lower level.
Microaerophilic
organisms are organisms
that require oxygen,
but at a lower level than
that of the atmosphere.
So Campylobacter are
microaerophilic organisms.
In 1972, we started to isolate
them using filtration.
We know that they
are microaerophilic
and require complex
growth requirements.
We can culture them in
reduced oxygen and
increased CO_2.
We will use special
selective agar in
order to be able to
grow Campylobacter.
When we think about all of
the other organisms that
are present within our gut,
and when we think about
the selective agar,
these agars will also
include antibiotics
to remove all the
other faecal flora.
Now, these are quite
small organisms
and they can actually pass
through some filters.
I talked to you just a
minute ago about how
in 1972, they were
isolated by filtration.
Now we know more about
these organisms.
If we are filtering water
and we want to detect
Campylobacter,
we need to think
about the pore size,
and the pore size needs to
be smaller than 0.45μm.
Campylobacter are
zoonotic organisms.
