Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O26 infections cause severe human diseases such as hemolytic uremic syndrome and encephalopathy, and is the predominant serogroup among non-O157 EHEC in many countries. Shiga toxin (Stx), which consists of two distinct types (Stx1 and Stx2), plays a central role in EHEC pathogenesis. The major stx gene type in EHEC O26 strains is stx1, although isolates...

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157 (EHEC O157) is a food-borne pathogen that has raised worldwide public health concern. The development of simple and rapid strain-typing methods is crucial for the rapid detection and surveillance of EHEC O157 outbreaks. In the present study, we developed a multiplex PCR-based strain-typing method for EHEC O157, which is based on the variability in genomic...

Ethanolamine (EA) is a compound prevalent in the gastrointestinal (GI) environment. The ability to catabolize this compound has been associated with important GI pathogens, including enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 (EHEC). It has been hypothesized that the ability of EHEC to utilize EA as a source of nitrogen provides EHEC with an important competitive advantage in the gut. However, ...

Foodborne illness attributed to enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC), a highly pathogenic subset of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), is increasingly recognized as a significant public health issue. Current microbiological methods for identification of EHEC in foods often use PCR-based approaches to screen enrichment broth cultures for characteristic gene markers [i.e., Shiga toxin (stx) and in...

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) is a subset of pathogenic E. coli that can cause diarrhea or hemorrhagic colitis in humans. Hemorrhagic colitis occasionally progresses to hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), an important cause of acute renal failure in children and morbidity and mortality in adults. Enterohemorrhagic E. coli O157:H7 (EHEC O157:H7) has been known to cause these syndromes s...

BACKGROUND Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) cause diarrhea-associated hemolytic uremic syndrome (D+ HUS) worldwide, but no systematic study of EHEC as the causative agents of HUS was performed in the Czech Republic. We analyzed stools of all patients with D+ HUS in the Czech Republic between 1998 and 2012 for evidence of EHEC infection. We determined virulence profiles, phenotypes, ant...

This review covers enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) infections, focusing on differences in their virulence factors and regulation. While Shiga-toxin expression from integrated bacteriophages sets EHEC apart from EPEC, EHEC infections often originate from asymptomatic carriage in ruminants whereas human EPEC are considered to be overt pathogens and m...

New safety recommendations for destroying enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) include cooking hamburgers thoroughly, incorporating a procedure that kills EHEC in the manufacture of raw fermented sausage, such as salami, and pasteurizing or using an equivalent processing method for apple cider. Public health problems with EHEC are being recognized throughout the world. The need for consumer educati...

This study assessed the quantitative microbial risk of non-enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC). For hazard identification, hazards of non-EHEC E. coli in natural and processed cheeses were identified by research papers. Regarding exposure assessment, non-EHEC E. coli cell counts in cheese were enumerated, and the developed predictive models were used to describe the fates of non-EHEC E. c...

BACKGROUND Hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) is caused by enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) which possess genes encoding Shiga toxin (stx), the major virulence factor, and adhesin intimin (eae). However, the frequency of stx-negative/eae-positive E. coli in stools of HUS patients and the clinical significance of such strains are unknown. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Between 1996 and 2...