Comparison of intestinal bacterial populations between two dairy cattle herds colonized or not by Campylobacter jejuni

Campylobacter jejuni is an important foodborne pathogen. It can be isolated from bovine feces and its presence is influenced by farm characteristics and management practices. The impact of the bovine gut microbiota on the presence of C. jejuni is poorly documented. Two herds of lactating cows were selected: one where C. jejuni was not detected in 20 animals and the other where 55% of the sampled animals (11/20) were contaminated by C. jejuni. The bacterial diversity of bovine feces from these two herds was analyzed by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism. The full-length 16S rRNA gene was amplified using fluorescently labeled primers and subsequently digested with HaeIII. Terminal restriction fragments profiles comparison showed a similarity level >79% between microbial populations from both herds. As profiles containing or not C. jejuni were clustered together, it is proposed that the presence of C. jejuni is not linked to a particular profile from the recovered intestinal bovine microbiota.