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Infection and Immunity, October 2003, p. 6068-6074, Vol. 71, No. 10
0019-9567/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.71.10.6068-6074.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Department of Pathology, Bacteriology and Avian Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, 9820 Merelbeke,1 Center for Agricultural Research, Department of Animal Product Quality and Transformation Technology, 9090 Melle,2 Pasteur Institute of Brussels, Phage Typing Service, 1180 Brussels, Belgium3
Received 21 February 2003/ Returned for modification 1 April 2003/ Accepted 26 June 2003
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The pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns of 38 Salmonella serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen strains, isolated either from pigeon fecal samples or from pigeons at necropsy, were determined. The isolates derived from different flocks. Both the serotype and the phage type of these strains were determined (21). For comparison of PFGE patterns, 89 strains from poultry (10 strains), pigs (73 strains), and humans (6 strains) were used. The bacteria were grown while being shaken overnight at 37°C in Luria-Bertani broth (LB). The XbaI and BlnI PFGE patterns were determined for all 145 Salmonella serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen strains using previously described PFGE methods with some slight modifications (11, 16). The patterns were grouped in a dendrogram with GelCompar II (Applied Maths, St.-Martens-Latem, Belgium) by using the Dice coefficient and the unweighted pair group method using arithmetic averages clustering algorithm.
The presence of the virulence genes shdA, spvR, spvB, pefA, and sopE in six Salmonella serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen strains isolated from pigeons was determined by separate PCRs (Table 1). The following specific primers were designed for the virulence genes investigated on the basis of the sequences deposited in the EMBL database: shdAf (5'-CTG ACG TTA AGC GGC GAT AA-3') and shdAr (5'-CGT CAA CGT CTG TCA GTG TA-3'), pefAf (5'-ACA CGC TGC CAA TGA AGT GA-3') and pefAr (5'-ACT GCG AAA GAT GCC ACA GA-3'), spvRf (5'-CAG GTT CCT TCA GTA TCG CA-3') and spvRr (5'-TTT GGC CGG AAA TGG TCA GT-3'), spvBf (5'-CGC AGT ATA ACG ACA GCG AT-3') and spvBr (5'-GCT AGT CCA GAG GTA CAG AT-3'), and sopEf (5'-CAG ACC CGT GAA GCT ATA CT-3') and sopEr (5'-AAT TGC TGT GGA GTC GGC AT-3'). The specificity of each primer pair for its respective virulence gene was assayed by sequencing the amplicon of at least one strain, purified with a High Pure PCR product purification kit (Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany) on an Applied Biosystems ABI 310 sequencer with an ABI Prism Dye Terminator cycle sequencing ready reaction kit (Perkin Elmer Applied Biosystems, Foster City, Calif.). The specific amplicons were separated by agarose gel electrophoresis in 1.5% Seakem ME agarose (FMC Bioproducts, Rockland, Maine) and visualized by staining with ethidium bromide.
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TABLE 1. Origins, phage types, and PFGE-BlnI patterns of serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen strains used in the in vitro and in vivo studiesa
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In order to assess the cytotoxic effects of Salmonella, the macrophages were exposed to the pigeon and the porcine strains as described above. At 24 h postinoculation, 20 µl of the cell proliferation agent WST-1 (Roche) was added to each well and absorbencies were measured at 450 nm (Titertek, Helsinki, Finland). The number of cells per well was determined using a standard curve, which was prepared with a dilution series of the cell suspension.
For the study of the in vivo behavior of Salmonella serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen in pigeons, a porcine and a pigeon isolate exhibiting low (phage type 208) and high (phage type 99) macrophage cytotoxicities, respectively, were selected. The bacteria were grown in LB overnight at 37°C. Twelve clinically healthy adult pigeons were inoculated. The animals derived from a breeding colony free of Salmonella and were negative for the presence of Salmonella bacteria in their feces and for the presence of agglutinating antibodies to Salmonella. Each animal was housed individually. The experiment was carried out with the approval of the ethical committee of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University. Each pigeon was inoculated in the crop with 5 x 108 CFU of the bacterial suspension of either the pigeon or the porcine strain in 1 ml of inoculum. The numbers of Salmonella CFU per gram of feces were determined at days 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 10 postinoculation. If negative after direct plating, the samples were preenriched in buffered peptone water (Oxoid) and then enriched in tetrathionate brilliant green broth (Oxoid). The animals were examined daily for the presence of clinical symptoms such as apathy, diarrhea, and polyuria. At day 10 postinoculation, blood was collected from each pigeon and the titer of agglutinating antibodies in the serum was determined using a twofold dilution series of serum and glass slide agglutination with inactivated bacteria. From each animal, the liver, spleen, lung, heart, kidney, ovary (if present), and small and large intestines were collected, homogenized, and examined for the number of CFU of serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen per gram of tissue. The bacterial counts per organ were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test (SPSS, Chicago, Ill.). Levels of fecal shedding between pigeons inoculated with the pigeon strain and pigeons inoculated with the porcine strain were compared using a linear mixed-effect model, with the pigeon as a random factor and an autoregressive correlation structure of the first order (S-plus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands). The probability level for significance was a P of <0.05.
All the Salmonella strains collected from pigeons belonged to serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen phage type 99. The PFGE analysis of these pigeon strains with XbaI showed a uniform pattern (at least 85% similarity), which was, however, distinct from the XbaI patterns observed with serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen isolates from other animal sources (poultry and pigs) and from human infections (similarity of 45% or lower) (Fig. 1). The 89 isolates from poultry, pigs, and humans belonged to 16 different XbaI patterns. The pigeon isolates invariably showed the presence of a low-molecular-weight band (less than 50 kb) in the XbaI pattern, which was absent in the majority of the other isolates shown in Fig. 1. Contrary to the results of the PFGE analysis with XbaI, the PFGE analysis with BlnI showed four different patterns within the collection of pigeon isolates (Fig. 2): 33 strains belonged to BlnI type I, while BlnI types II, III, and IV included 4 strains, 3 strains, and 1 strain, respectively. BlnI types II, III, and IV could be attributed to only a one- or two-band difference from the bands of type I observed in the majority of the pigeon isolates. The virulence typing of six of these pigeon isolates (Table 1) belonging to these four BlnI types showed that the virulence genes shdA, spvR, spvB, pefA, and sopE were uniformly present in these strains.
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FIG. 1. Dendrogram obtained by unweighted pair group method using arithmetic averages clustering of the PFGE-XbaI patterns of serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen strains from pigeons and other sources on the basis of the Dice coefficient. The highest-molecular-weight band (indicated by the left arrow) was omitted from the numerical analysis. A low-molecular-weight band (indicated by the right arrow) was invariably present in all pigeon isolates. The dendrogram shows the genetic relationships between the various isolates and the clonal nature of the pigeon isolates (indicated in bold on the dendrogram) in particular.
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FIG. 2. PFGE-BlnI patterns of pigeon isolates of serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen used in in vivo and in vitro studies. The strains represent the closely related BlnI types I to IV, which were designated on the basis of the polymorphic bands indicated by arrows.
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FIG. 3. Intracellular numbers of either pigeon isolates (DAB series) or porcine isolates (MB series) of serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen in pigeon peritoneal macrophages at 0, 4, and 24 h postinoculation. The ratio of the log10 transformation of bacterial numbers recovered was determined for the time points 4 h versus 0 h (white bars) and 24 h versus 4 h postinoculation (black bars). In order to reduce interexperiment variation, the ratios obtained in one experiment were divided by the overall mean ratio of this experiment. Each bar represents the mean result of four independent experiments ± the standard error of the mean. Each experiment was conducted in triplicate.
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FIG. 4. Cytotoxic effects of either pigeon isolates (DAB series) or porcine isolates (MB series) of serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen on pigeon peritoneal macrophages. The bars represent the average percentages of viable cells at 24 h postinoculation ± the standard errors of the means compared to those of the uninfected control (negative control). Each bar represents the average result of three independent experiments conducted in triplicate.
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FIG. 5. The mean number of CFU per gram of feces ± the standard error of the mean after inoculation of 12 pigeons with either the serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen strain from pigeons (DAB69) or that from pigs (MB2150). At day 9 postinfection, two pigeons inoculated with DAB69 died.
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TABLE 2. Percentages of Salmonella-positive samples of organs and the mean numbers of CFU per gram of tissuea
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The ability to survive inside macrophages is associated with host adaptation in mammals and birds (1, 7, 20, 25). In mammalian species, the intracellular survival of Salmonella in macrophages eventually leads to killing of the host macrophage in an apoptosis-like way (3, 4, 10, 12, 14, 18, 23, 27). The pigeon strains were found in smaller numbers in the pigeon peritoneal macrophages after 24 h than the porcine strains. However, these lower bacterial numbers coincided with a higher cytotoxicity of the pigeon strains for the macrophages. Hence, the lower number of bacteria recovered after 24 h is instead due to an enhanced killing of macrophages, which in turn release the intracellular bacteria in the gentamicin-containing environment. Therefore, adaptation of the pigeon isolates of serovar Typhimurium to pigeons appears to be associated with enhanced macrophage cytotoxicity. Possibly, enhanced cytotoxicity allows the pigeon-adapted strains of serovar Typhimurium to spread more quickly once the internal organs, such as liver and spleen, are colonized. The importance of host macrophage cell death during a systemic infection in mice was proposed earlier (13).
The pigeon isolate was more virulent for pigeons than the porcine strain of serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen, resulting in a typhoid fever-like syndrome with a higher mortality rate, severe clinical symptoms, and higher bacterial counts in the internal organs. This finding is in agreement with the hypothesis that increased adaptation of a Salmonella serovar to a certain host is associated with increased virulence in that particular host (2). Prolonged and enhanced fecal shedding of Salmonella bacteria was noticed in the pigeons inoculated with the pigeon isolate. This epidemiologically important feature enables this particular strain to maintain Salmonella infections more efficiently in a population of pigeons than the porcine strain (9).
Interestingly, the pigeon strain was found in the ovaries of infected pigeons, unlike the porcine strain. Association of Salmonella with the genital tracts of pigeons has been mentioned before (6) and is a characteristic of other known host-adapted and host-restricted serovars, such as serovars Abortusovis in sheep, Pullorum in poultry, and Dublin in cattle (22, 26). The possibility of vertical transmission promotes the maintenance of this pigeon-adapted strain in the pigeon population.
Both the porcine and the pigeon strains induced seroconversion in at least some of the inoculated pigeons. Hence, care should be taken in interpreting the results of serologic examination of pigeons in the diagnosis of salmonellosis as proposed earlier (19), since transient infections with avirulent strains may also produce positive results.
In conclusion, the clonal nature of the pigeon isolates of serovar Typhimurium demonstrated using PFGE, phage typing, and virulence typing, as well as the enhanced virulence of these strains for pigeon macrophages and for pigeons, and their association with the pigeon genital tract suggest that these isolates of serovar Typhimurium variant Copenhagen phage type 99 represent a separate lineage within the serovar Typhimurium. Opposed to other lineages of serovar Typhimurium, which are generally accepted to be unrestricted, this lineage could be classified as host restricted (according to the classification of Uzzau et al. [22]).
This study was funded by research grants from Ghent University, from BOF, and from FWO-Flanders to F. Pasmans.
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