Growth rates and Metabolic Traits Differentiate Campylobacter jejuni Strains by Diarrheal Manifestation

Campylobacter jejuni is the leading bacterial cause of gastroenteritis worldwide, and can result in two different diarrheal manifestations in humans: a bloody/inflammatory diarrhea or a watery diarrhea. Currently, little is known about the factors leading to these two distinct diarrheal manifestations; however, five strains of C. jejuni associated with bloody/inflammatory diarrhea and five strains associated with watery diarrhea have been characterized in the neonatal piglet diarrhea model system. Here, we demonstrate individual differences between C. jejuni strains and found that these two groups of C. jejuni strains exhibit differences in temperature dependent and independent growth rate and carbon source utilization. We show that that watery diarrhea associated C. jejuni strains grow significantly faster and have enhanced biofilm production compared to bloody/inflammatory diarrhea associated C. jejuni strains at human body temperature (37oC). Whereas bloody/inflammatory diarrhea associated strains grew faster at 42oC compared to 37oC. Using phenotypic microarrays to examine 192 carbon source utilization as a preliminary screening, we show that L-fucose is utilized differently by strains within the two diarrheal manifestation groups. L-fucose utilization is significantly higher among watery diarrhea associated strains at both 37oC and 42oC compared to bloody/inflammatory associated strains. While L-glutamine utilization is significantly higher among bloody/inflammatory diarrhea associated strains at 37oC compared to watery associated strains. Overall, these findings suggest that there are distinct metabolic adaptations of bloody/inflammatory and watery diarrhea-associated C. jejuni strains to human (37oC) and poultry (42oC) temperatures that may contribute to their differing diarrheal manifestations.