Study of Prevalence ofArcobacter butzleriin Chicken Meat, Mutton, Chevon, Carabeef and Milk using Conventional PCR

The reports of prevalence of Arcobacter butzleri in mutton, chevon and cara beef are very rare in India. The foods of animal origin included in the present study are mutton, chevon and cara beef in addition to chicken meat and milk. A total of 154 samples viz. 23 for mutton, 20 for chevon and 10 for carabeef were collected from retail meat shops, Bareilly, U.P, India; 70 samples of chicken meat were collected from CARI, IVRI, Bareilly India and 30 milk samples were collected from various milk suppliers, vendors and dairy farms, Bareilly, India. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based screening was employed in this study to determine the prevalence of Arcobacter butzleri in the collected samples. PCR assays used in the present study were standardized as per the protocol of Houf et al. (2000). The optimised PCR assay gave an amplification product of 401 bp size in 18 samples out of 154 and it was specific only for Arcobacter butzleri and not for other related bacterial DNAu0027s tested like that of Arcobacter cryaerophilus, Arcobacter skirrow, C. jejuni, C. coli, Salmonella Typhimurium and E. coli. While 12 of chicken meat, 03 mutton, 01 chevon, 01 carabeef, 01 milk samples were positive by PCR giving the respective prevalence of 17.14%, 13.04%, 5%, 10% and 3.22%. The overall prevalence of Arcobacter butzleri in the screened samples was found to be 11.69%.