Campylobacter jejuni: a study on environmental conditions affecting culturability and in vitro adhesion/invasion

Aims: Nongrowing cultures of Campylobacter jejuni lose their culturability. It is unclear whether this loss in culturability also affects their ability to interact with host cells. The purpose of this study was to determine the relevance of the number of culturable cells to the ability to adhere/invade in Caco-2 cells. Methods and Results: For C. jejuni C356, culturability and adhesion/invasion were monitored in time (days) under different storage conditions (temperature, medium, atmosphere). Decrease rates of both culturability and adhesion/invasion were dependent on the conditions used, but the number of adhering/invading cells per culturable cell was not affected by the environmental conditions. Furthermore five strains were monitored at one condition. The culturability and adhesion/invasion decrease rates did not significantly differ per strain; however the number of adhering/invading cells per culturable cell was strain dependent. Conclusions: Culturability and adhesion/invasion of C. jejuni are linearly related. The number of adhering/invading cells per culturable C. jejuni cell is strain dependent, but is not affected by environmental conditions. Significance and Impact of the Study: It was shown that the number of culturable cells is a good measure for the in vitro adhesion/invasion of. C. jejuni.