Worldwide Distribution of L. monocytogenes | CDC EID

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Volume 17, Number 6–June 2011
Dispatch
Worldwide Distribution of Major Clones of Listeria monocytogenes
Viviane Chenal-Francisque,1 Jodie Lopez,1 Thomas Cantinelli, Valerie Caro, Coralie Tran, Alexandre Leclercq, Marc Lecuit,2 and Sylvain Brisse2
Author affiliations: Institut Pasteur, Paris, France (V. Chenal-Francisque, J. Lopez, T. Cantinelli, V. Caro, C. Tran, A. Leclercq, M. Lecuit, S. Brisse); World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Listeria, Paris (V. Chenal-Francisque, A. Leclercq, M. Lecuit); Inserm Avenir U604, Paris éParis Descartes, Paris (M. Lecuit)

Suggested citation for this article

Abstract
Listeria monocytogenes is worldwide a pathogen, but the geographic distribution of clones remains largely unknown. Genotyping of 300 isolates from the 5 continents and diverse sources showed the existence of few prevalent and globally distributed clones, some of which include previously described epidemic clones. Cosmopolitan distribution indicates the need for genotyping standardization.

Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogen that can cause listeriosis, a severe invasive infection in humans with a particularly high case-fatality rate. Listeriosis is a major public health concern in all world regions, with an increasing incidence in Europe, especially among elderly persons (1,2).

L. monocytogenes is genetically heterogeneous (3–5). To help epidemiologic investigation and to define clones, i.e., groups of genetically similar isolates descending from a common ancestor, a variety of typing methods have been used, including pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (5,6), single nucleotide polymorphism typing (7), and multiple housekeeping and virulence gene sequencing (8,9). Some clones implicated in multiple outbreaks have been defined as epidemic clones (EC) (3,5,9–11). ECI and ECIV have been described in several countries (3,5), but because of the lack of standardization of genotyping, a definition of clones is not widely accepted, and current knowledge on the global distribution of L. monocytogenes clones is virtually absent. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) is a reference method for global epidemiology and population biology of bacteria, and its application to L. monocytogenes (12) effectively allows isolate comparisons across laboratories (www.pasteur.fr/mlst). The aim of this study was to investigate the global distribution of L. monocytogenes MLST-defined clones.


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Worldwide Distribution of L. monocytogenes | CDC EID


Suggested Citation for this Article
Chenal-Francisque V, Lopez J, Cantinelli T, Caro V, Tran C, Leclercq A, et al. Worldwide distribution of major clones of Listeria monocytogenes. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet]. 2011 Jun [date cited]. http://www.cdc.gov/EID/content/17/6/1110.htm

DOI: 10.3201/eid1706.101778


1These authors contributed equally to this study.

2These authors contributed equally to this study.


Comments to the Authors
Please use the form below to submit correspondence to the authors or contact them at the following address:

Sylvain Brisse. Institut Pasteur, Genotyping of Pathogens and Public Health (PF8), 28 Rue du Dr Roux, F-75724 Paris, France; email: sylvain.brisse@pasteur.fr