Isolation and characterization of Campylobacter from chicken

The Campylobacter isolates used in this study were isolated during a separate study investigating the efficacy of sanitizers during chicken meat processing (Chousalkar et al., 2019 (link)). Briefly, chicken meat carcasses (15 birds from each of eight different broiler production sheds) were collected from two separate processing plants prior to the inside-outside wash step. Bacteria were isolated by massaging chicken carcasses (prior to sanitizer exposure) in buffered peptone water (BPW) (Oxoid, Australia). Two hundred microliters of BPW wash was spread plated onto modified charcoal-cefoperazone deoxycholate agar (mCCDA) (Oxoid, Australia) and incubated at 42°C in 10% CO₂ for 48 h. Putative, Campylobacter isolates were sub-cultured once to obtain pure cultures, stored at −80°C in 5% glycerol, and further characterized using PCR. A total of 116 Campylobacter isolates were obtained.
In preparation for experiments, bacteria were resuscitated from freezing stocks on to Columbia sheep blood agar (SBA) (Oxoid, Thermo Scientific, Australia) and incubated at 42°C in 10% CO₂ for 48 h. The Campylobacter jejuni ATCC 33291 strain was used as a control strain.