Genetically similar strains of Escherichia coli O157:H7 isolated from sheep, cattle and human patients

BMC Veterinary Research

Anna Aspán¹  Erik Eriksson¹  Anna Nilsson²  Ingela Hedenström⁴  Robert Söderlund³ 

[1] Department of Bacteriology, National Veterinary Institute, Uppsala, 75189, Sweden;Department of Clinical Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, 75651, Sweden;Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, 75651, Sweden;Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control, Solna, 17182, Sweden

关键词: Clade 8;    PFGE;    MLVA;    Sheep;    STEC;    VTEC;    O157:H7;   

Others  :  1119687
DOI  :  10.1186/1746-6148-8-200

 received in 2012-02-24, accepted in 2012-10-11,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Comparatively little is known about the prevalence or the molecular characteristics of the zoonotic pathogen E. coli O157:H7 in the sheep reservoir. To investigate this and determine the host specificity of subclones of the bacterium, we have conducted a slaughterhouse prevalence study in sheep and compared the collected isolates to O157:H7 previously isolated from cattle and human patients.

Results

Verotoxin-producing O157:H7 was found in 11/597 (1.8%) of samples from sheep in Swedish slaughterhouses, 9/492 faecal (1.8%) and 2/105 ear samples (1.9%). All positive sheep were < 6 months old. Pulsed field gel electrophoresis typing revealed exact matches between isolates from the sheep prevalence study and human patients as well as between isolates from sheep and cattle. In one case, matching isolates were found in sheep, cattle, and a human patient in the same municipality. Identical PFGE profiles generally corresponded to similar but non-identical multi-locus VNTR profiles. In one sheep sample, SNP-typing found the highly virulent clade 8 variant of O157:H7. The virulence gene profiles of sheep isolates from the prevalence study and three sheep farms linked to cases of human illness were investigated by PCR detection (eaeA, hlyA, cdtV-B, vtx₁), and partial sequencing of vtx₂. The observed profiles were similar to those of cattle strains investigated previously.

Conclusions

The same pathogenic subtypes of VTEC O157:H7, including the highly virulent clade 8, appear to be present in both sheep and cattle in Sweden, suggesting strains can circulate freely between ruminant reservoirs.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Söderlund et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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