Affiliation:
1. School of Biological Sciences
2. Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UU, United Kingdom
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Field and laboratory studies were performed to determine whether slugs could act as novel vectors for pathogen (e.g.,
Escherichia coli
O157) transfer from animal feces to salad vegetables.
Escherichia coli
O157 was isolated from 0.21% of field slugs from an Aberdeenshire sheep farm. These isolates carried the verocytotoxin genes (
vt1
and
vt2
) and the attaching and effacing gene (
eae
), suggesting that they are potentially pathogenic to humans. Strain typing using multilocus variable number tandem repeats analysis showed that slug and sheep isolates were indistinguishable. Laboratory experiments using an
E. coli
mutant resistant to nalidixic acid showed that the ubiquitous slug species
Deroceras reticulatum
could carry viable
E. coli
on its external surface for up to 14 days. Slugs that had been fed
E. coli
shed viable bacteria in their feces with numbers showing a short but statistically significant linear log decline. Further, it was found that
E. coli
persisted for up to 3 weeks in excreted slug feces, and hence, we conclude that slugs have the potential to act as novel vectors of
E. coli
O157.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Subject
Ecology,Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology,Food Science,Biotechnology
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