Conserved CRISPR arrays in Salmonella enterica serovar Infantis can serve as qPCR targets to detect Infantis in mixed serovar populations.
Salmonellosis is a leading bacterial cause of foodborne illness, and numerous Salmonella enterica serovars have been responsible for foodborne outbreaks. In the United States outbreaks are often linked to poultry and poultry-related products. The prevalence of Salmonella serovar Infantis has been increasing in poultry processing facilities over the past few years and in 2018 was identified as the causative agent for a large multistate outbreak linked to raw chicken. CRISPR-typing is a subtyping approach based on PCR and the sequencing of two Salmonella loci, CRISPR1 and CRISPR2. CRISPR-typing was used to interrogate 138 recent (2018-2019) isolates and genomes of ser. Infantis. Results show that the CRISPR elements are remarkably conserved in this serovar. The most conserved spacers, and those also unique to ser. Infantis, were used as targets to develop a ser. Infantis-specific qPCR assay. This assay was able to detect ser. Infantis in mixed serovar cultures of Salmonella, down to 0·1% of the population, highlighting the utility of this molecular approach in improving surveillance sensitivity for this important food safety pathogen. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: The incidence of human salmonellosis cases caused by Salmonella enterica serovar Infantis (ser. Infantis) has been increasing, as has its prevalence in broiler chickens, which are a frequent reservoir of Salmonella. A cluster of ser. Infantis genetically linked to an outbreak strain have been identified in numerous processing facilities. A qPCR assay targeting CRISPR elements that are unique to ser. Infantis has been developed and can detect this serovar directly from mixed cultures. This assay is sensitive enough to reveal ser. Infantis within a mixed Salmonella population where it constitutes only 0·1% of the population. The rapid nature of qPCR lends this assay to high-throughput screening of poultry samples to detect this important pathogen.
['Richards|A K|AK|', 'Hopkins|B A|BA|', 'Shariat|N W|NW|https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3943-4829']
D000818:Animals D002645:Chickens D064112:Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats D004196:Disease Outbreaks D006801:Humans D058889:Molecular Typing D011200:Poultry D011201:Poultry Diseases D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction D012478:Salmonella Food Poisoning D019779:Salmonella enterica D065288:Serogroup D014481:United States
CRISPR Salmonella Infantis qPCR poultry surveillance food safety