Campylobacter is using ‘sat nav’

Campylobacter is one of the most common causes of bacterial foodborne illness. When people get infected, the bacteria need to find their way from the source of contamination, most often undercooked poultry, to the cells lining the gut, passing through thick layers of mucus. In these different locations, Campylobacter must find enough food to sustain itself as well as a suitable environment to carry out respiration, the process of generating energy.

Researchers at the Institute of Food Research on the Norwich Research Park have uncovered how the foodborne bacterial pathogen Campylobacter jejuni can change its swimming behaviour to find a location with more food.

Using a newly developed assay, the researchers found that Campylobacter balances the directions given by two different systems to either seek out more nutritious locations or to find places where respiration is most efficient. Genetic tools were used to show that the system controlling swimming towards food overrides the other system, suggesting that the ‘need to feed’ is the foremost concern for Campylobacter.

Unlike other food poisoning bugs, such as E. coli or Salmonella, Campylobacter has a whole range of systems that can detect different chemicals in the environment and alter swimming behaviour accordingly: the ‘sat nav’ of the bacterial world.

The work is published in the journal PLOS ONE. Dr Mark Reuter, the lead author says, “We know that Campylobacter can swim, and that this is very important for causing disease, but aimless swimming isn’t efficient. The bugs need to know where they want to go.”

Discovering how these sat nav systems help target the bugs to the site of infection may help prevent future disease, and may be relevant to other foodborne and gut-associated pathogens.