Author:
Thomas Rowan R,Brooks Heather J L,O'Brien Rory
Abstract
BackgroundShiga toxin-producing (STEC) and enteropathogenic (EPEC) Escherichia coli are gastrointestinal pathogens causing diarrhoeal and extraintestinal disease. Due to lack of EPEC screening and use of Sorbitol-MacConkey (SMAC) agar in faecal screening, the true prevalence of EPEC and non-O157 STEC in New Zealand diarrhoeal cases is unknown.MethodsDiarrhoeic stools sourced from Dunedin hospital were pre-enriched, DNA extracted with Chelex-100 resin and screened using a multiplex TaqMan quantitative PCR assay amplifying stx1, sxt2 and EPEC (eae) gene markers.ResultsOf the 522 diarrhoeic samples surveyed, 8 (1.53%) were PCR positive for stx1/stx2 and 23 (4.41%) were positive for eae. Six (75%) of the stx+ samples were uncommon non-O157 serotypes, and the remainder were found to be positive for both O103 and O157 STEC somatic antigens.ConclusionsResults revealed shortcomings in current screening protocols for pathogenic E. coli; SMAC is not sufficiently discriminatory to detect emergent STEC serotypes and EPEC likely has an unappreciated role in cases of diarrhoea in New Zealand.
Subject
General Medicine,Pathology and Forensic Medicine
Cited by
6 articles.
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