National Reference Laboratory for Campylobacter

The reservoir for Campylobacter bacteria are warm-blooded wild, farm and domestic animals (birds and mammals), which usually do not show any clinical symptoms of disease. In humans, infectious diseases caused by Campylobacter are mainly associated with diarrhoea. In Germany, as in other European countries, Campylobacter is the most common pathogen of bacterial intestinal infections (enteritis). In Germany, about 70,000 cases of Campylobacter infections are reported to the RKI every year.

Campylobacter infections in humans are mostly food-associated. One of the main sources of infection is insufficiently heated or contaminated poultry meat and the preparation of raw chicken meat with cross-contamination of the bacteria to ready-to-eat food, such as lettuce (see video [in German “Dem Keim auf der Spur”] "Tracing the germ" at the side of this homepage). Other sources of infection can be unpasteurised milk, raw minced meat, untreated drinking water, ingestion of surface water and direct contact to pets.

The National Reference Laboratory for Campylobacter is located at the BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment. The work focuses on routine and research work on the characterisation and differentiation of Campylobacter isolates originating from animals, food and environmental samples. Various molecular biological methods, including whole genome sequencing, are available for epidemiological investigations.

The National Reference Laboratory for Campylobacter at BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment has the following main areas of work:

• Performing tasks within the framework of the Zoonoses Monitoring Directive 2003/99/EC.
• Microbiological and molecular diagnostics of Campylobacter spp. and Arcobacter spp.
• Organisation of interlaboratory proficiency tests for qualitative and quantitative detection of Campylobacter in relevant matrices, e.g. chicken meat/skin, raw milk and chicken caecal content
• Production of quantitative reference standards (see our published protocol below)
• Antibiotic resistance testing of Campylobacter spp.
• Support in the elucidation of infection chains
• Molecular fine typing (using MLST, flaA/porA sequencing, cpn60, cgMLST and SNP analysis)
• Molecular analysis of Campylobacter spp. resistance
• Rapid detection by PCR and real-time PCR
• Strain collection
• Consulting

In contrast to most other food-associated pathogens, Campylobacter spp. are fastidious bacteria, which are difficult to cultivate in vitro. However, cultivation and detection of live bacteria from food serves as a basis for realistic risk assessment of food products contaminated by Campylobacter spp.. Moreover, Campylobacter spp. exhibit a high genetic variabilityClose dialogvariabilityVariabilityTo glossary, which enable the bacteria to adapt to changing environments and to increase their potential to survive in the host organism as well as in the food chain.

Research focus at the NRL for Campylobacter

Due to the particularity of the bacterium, research is focussed on the following main topics:

• Development, validation and standardisation of new molecular methods for the detection and genotyping of Campylobacter spp.
• Development of alternative methods for the cultivation-independent quantification of living Campylobacter
• Application of cultivation-independent methods for improved analysis of the persistence of Campylobacter in food and for the identification of transmission routes
• Surveillance of the distribution and spread of antibiotic-resistant Campylobacter isolates as well as characterisation of resistance determinants at the molecular level
• Horizontal gene transfer in Campylobacter spp. as driving force for genome variability and adaptation to changing ecological niches (animal host, food products, and human host).
• Identification of unknown and modified Campylobacter strains

Third party projects

• External Link:Preventing and combating Campylobacter infections: On track towards a One Health approach (PAC-CAMPY 2)
  External Link:11/2020 - 10/2022
• External Link:CHANCE - Profiling Campylobacter from High selection Areas for the development of a Novel alert tool to meet the global Challenge of Enforced antimicrobial resistance (Chance)
  External Link:03/2020 - 02/2023