Isolation and determination of thermophilic Campylobacter spp. from broiler chicken

Thermotolerant Campylobacter spp. cause of the problems especially in poultry industry because of the poultrys? intestinal temperature is 420C which means of the ideal medium of their growth.In this study, a total of 35 broiler chicken samples belong to different 7 brands were obtained in their original package from retail markets and 1 plant in Adana,. These samples were examined for total aerobic mesophilic bacteria, coliform group bacteria -Escherichia coli and Campylobacter spp.Total aerobic mesophilic bacteria was found to range from 65x102 to 32x103 cfu/g. Coliforms were found between 20 x101-55x101 cfu/g by cultural method and 25-45MPN/g by MPN method . E. coli was detected between <3 - 45 MPN/g by MPN method. Thermophilic Campylobacter spp. were isolated from 21 of total 35 broiler chicken samples by conventional method.However, only 3 of the 21 isolates which was isolated by the conventional methods were not confirmed as Campylobacter spp. by molecular identification. For molecular identification 9 of these 18 isolates were determined as Campylobacter jejuni, 7 of them were Campylobacter coli, 1 of them were Campylobacter upsaliensis and 1 of them were Campylobacter lari.It was showed that the pre-enrichment stage was important to isolation of thermophilic Campylobacter spp. In addition, the results of this study was suggested that using Campylobacter Blood-Free Agar (mCCDA) and Campylobacter Selective Agar (CSA) medias together for isolation was better than using alone.Moreover, it was found that to study with both molecular and conventional methods together for isolation and identification of Campylobacter spp. was more successful.