ABSTRACT
Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) was generally considered as a hospital-associated disease; however, recent studies indicated that foods might also play a role in its epidemical chain. From August-2013 to February-2014, oyster samples and harvesting water samples were collected monthly from 6 commercial oyster harvesting areas along Louisiana Gulf Coast and analyzed for total aerobic bacteria, fecal coliforms, coliphage and pathogenic C. difficile. In this study, C. difficile were isolated from 9 (47.37%) of 19 oyster samples and 3 (37.5%) of 8 harvesting water samples and all isolations were carrying the toxin B-encoding gene (tcdB). Toxin B positive C. difficle was detected in all influent and effluent samples collected from a waste water treatment plant (WWTP) located in New Orleans, LA. However, the PCR-ribotyping showed that different strains of C. difficile were found in sewage effluent and oysters/harvesting water, suggesting the discharge of treated sewage might not contribute to the transmission of C. difficile into the harvesting areas. No statistical significance was found between the density of fecal coliform/E. coli in oysters and the occurrence of C. difficile, according to a binary logistic regression model (odds ratio = 1.025 and 0.997). The concentration of Male-specific (F+) Coiphage and Somatic Coliphage in oysters was also found not to be directly related to the occurrence of C. difficile in oysters due to the low detection rate.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-06112014-180005 |
| Date | 30 June 2014 |
| Creators | Liu, Da |
| Contributors | Janes, Marlene E., King, Joan M., Prinyawiwatkul, Witoon |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-06112014-180005/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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