New Salmonella Serotype Discovered Salmonella Lubbock will provide new avenues for research into the bacteria’s prevention. Lubbock is known for many things. Some of them are reasons to celebrate, like being the home of Buddy Holly. Some portray the city in negativeways, like duststorms. The latesthonor to comeLubbock’s way may not sound good at first, but when realizing it’s a breakthrough in biological sciences, it will becomesomethingto brag about. Marie Bugarel, a researchassistant professor at Texas Tech University’s Department of Animal and Food Sciences in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, has discovered a new serotype of the salmonella bacteria. The new serotype was confirmed by the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the international reference center for salmonella. Because conventioncalls for a new serotype to be named after the city in which it is discovered,thisonewill be calledSalmonella Lubbock (officially Salmonella enterica subsp.enterica Lubbock). “More important than the name, however, is that this discovery illustrates there is more thatneedsto be discoveredabout salmonella and how it interacts with cattle populations,” said Guy Loneragan, a professor of food safety and public health who, along with Kendra Nightingale, are Bugarel’s mentors at Texas Tech. “With this understanding will comeawarenessof how to interveneto break the ecologicalcycle and reducesalmonella in animals and in beef, pork and chicken products.” Bugarel, who came to Texas Tech with an extensivebackground in salmonella research, has workedon developingnew tools to detect salmonella, new approaches to distinguish serotypes and ways to understand salmonella’sbiology. Her work has led to a patent application that has been licensedto a high-tech biosciences researchcompany. Her inventionmeans it is now possible to simultaneously detect and distinguishspecific strains of salmonella by targeting a specific combination of DNA. That will allow for early detection in food whilealso identifyingwhetheror belongsto a highly pathogenicstrain. In her research for Salmonella Lubbock, the impetus was to reduce salmonella in food and improve public health. She focused on providing solutions to control salmonella in cattle population, which led to a better understanding of the biological makeup of salmonella itself, including its genetic makeup. Through this approach, Bugarel discovered the new strain never before described. The long-held standardway of distinguishing one strain of salmonella from another is called serotyping and is based on the molecules on the surface of the bacterium. Each serotype has its own pattern of molecules,called antigens,and the collection of molecules provides a unique molecular appearance. These antigens interact with certain antibodies found in specifically prepared serum, thus providing the serotype. It is similar to how blood typingis performed. “This discovery reinforcesmy feelingthat the microbiological flora present in cattle in the United States harbors a singularity, which is an additional justificationof the research we are doing in the International Center for Food Industry Excellence (ICFIE) laboratories at Texas Tech,” Bugarel said. “Additional research will be performed to better describe the characteristics of this atypical bacterial flora and, more specifically, of the Lubbock serotype.” With this discovery, Loneragan believes between 20 and 30 percent of two current strains, Salmonella Montevideo and Salmonella Mbandaka, will be reclassified as Salmonella Lubbock. The algorithm used in serotyping has some stopping points, but Bugarel discovered a need to go a step further to get the correct strain name. Therefore some of those strains called Montevideo and Mbandaka are now Salmonella Lubbock. Some of the strains of Salmonella Lubbock fall into the categoryof serotypepatternsthat are more broadly resistant to many families of antibiotics, furthering the need for more researchon the subject. Human susceptibility to the Lubbockstrainsremains unknown. “We will continue to develop methods to detect, identify and control the presence of pathogenic microorganisms in food products in order to improve food safety and public health,”Bugarel said. “Kendra and I have beenhonoredto serve as Marie’s mentors,” Loneragan said. “But now, the growth in Marie’s expertise means that she is becoming the mentor to us. Many students, and the citizens of the United States in general and Texas in particular, are benefittingfrom her commitmentto research excellenceat Texas Tech. We are very lucky
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 06:09:13 +0000
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