A 12-month longitudinal study was undertaken on two dairy herds to ascertain the Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157 and O26 shedding status of the animals and its impact (if any) on raw milk. Cattle are a recognized reservoir for these organisms with associated public health and environmental implications. Animals shedding E. coli O157 at >10,000 CFU/g of feces have been deemed ...

Feeding pets raw meat-based diets (RMBDs) is becoming increasingly popular but comes with a risk of pathogenic bacteria, including Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC). In humans, STEC may cause gastrointestinal illnesses, diarrhea, hemorrhagic colitis (HC), and the hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). The aim this study was to evaluate commercially available RMBDs regard occurrence STEC. ...

Escherichia coli is a heterogeneous species that can be part of the normal flora of humans but also include strains of medical importance. Among pathogenic members, Shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STEC) are some of the more prominent pathogenic E. coli within the public sphere. STEC disease outbreaks are typically associated with contaminated beef, contaminated drinking water, and contaminated f...

The human intestinal microbiota is a homeostatic ecosystem with a remarkable impact on human health and the disruption of this equilibrium leads to an increased susceptibility to infection by numerous pathogens. In this study, we used shotgun metagenomic sequencing and two different bioinformatic approaches, based on mapping of the reads onto databases and on the reconstruction of putative draf...

The objective of this review is to highlight the importance of cattle in human disease due to Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) and to discuss features of STEC that are important in human disease. Healthy dairy and beef cattle are a major reservoir of a diverse group of STEC that infects humans through contamination of food and water, as well as through direct contact. Infection of ...

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are responsible for human infections, ranging from mild watery diarrhea to hemorrhagic colitis (CH) that may be complicated by hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). The main STEC virulence factor is Shiga toxin encoded by the stx gene, located in the genome of a bacteriophage integrated into the bacterial chromosome. The serotype O26:H11 is the second HU...

We have developed a rapid (1-h) real-time fluorescence-based PCR assay with the Smart Cycler thermal cycler (Cepheid, Sunnyvale, Calif.) for the detection of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), as well as other Shiga toxin-producing bacteria. Based on multiple-sequence alignments, we have designed two pairs of PCR primers that efficiently amplify all variants of the Shiga toxin genes...

OBJECTIVES To characterise the genetic and serological diversity of pathogenic Escherichia coli, we tested 111 E coli strains isolated from diarrhoeal patients in Korea between 2003 and 2006. METHODS The isolates were tested through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and slide agglutination method for the detection of virulence genes and serotypes, respectively. To compare the expression of Shig...

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are important enteropathogens causing severe diseases such as hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic-uremic syndrome in humans. The majority of STEC strains of serogroups O157, O26, or O111 associated with severe cases of these diseases possess a pathogenicity island termed the locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE). LEE, which is responsible for the forma...

Many pathogens produce the β-(1-6)-linked poly-N-acetylglucosamine (PNAG) surface polysaccharide that is being developed as a broadly protective antimicrobial vaccine. However, it is unknown whether systemically injected PNAG vaccines or antibodies would provide protective immunity against pathogens confined to the gastrointestinal tract such as Shiga toxin (Stx)-producing Escherichia coli (STE...