Sequence typing confirms that Campylobacter jejuni strains associated with Guillain-Barré and Miller-Fisher syndromes are of diverse genetic lineage, serotype, and flagella type.
Dingle KE., Van Den Braak N., Colles FM., Price LJ., Woodward DL., Rodgers FG., Endtz HP., Van Belkum A., Maiden MC.
Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and Miller-Fisher syndrome (MFS) are correlated with prior infection by Campylobacter jejuni in up to 40% of cases. Nucleotide sequence-based typing of 25 C. jejuni isolates associated with neuropathy permitted robust comparisons with equivalent data from approximately 800 C. jejuni isolates not associated with neuropathy. A total of 13 genetic lineages and 20 flaA short variable region nucleotide sequences were present among the 25 isolates. A minority of isolates (4 of 25) had the flaA short variable region nucleotide sequences that were previously proposed as a marker for GBS-associated isolates. These 4 isolates probably represented the Penner serotype 19 lineage, which has been proposed to have an association with GBS.