Prevalence, Antibiogram Pattern and Molecular Identification of pathogenic E. coli recovered from Different Sources

Abstract

Pathogenic Escherichia coli is one of the most main food borne pathogen causing serious problem particular for human through food of animal origin such as meat and dairy products. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence, antibiogram pattern and molecular identification of some putative virulence genes of pathogenic E.coli recovered from human and food sources. A total of 200 samples from minced meat, (50) Karish cheese, (50) human stool sample (50) and human urine samples (50) were collected for bacteriological identification before being subjected to serological and molecular analysis. The results revealed that 123 (61.5%) were positive for E. coli species on MacConkey ager while only 35 isolates were give green metallic sheen colonies on EMB. Of these 35 isolates, 16 isolates (45.7%) were identified as pathogenic E.coli through biofilm activity on congo red medium (back color colonies). The serological identification of 16 these E.coli strains revealed that EHEC was the most prevalent serotype and found in 8 (50%) followed by EPEC and ETEC 4(25%) for each serotype. All isolates showed high sensitivity test and found that amikacin, nitrofurantoin, gentamicin, amoxicillin /clavulanic acid, ciprofloxacin, and Ceftriaxone exhibit highly sensitivity with 100, 100, 87.5, 75, 62.5, and 62.5% respectively while resistance was recorded for penicillin, tetracycline, Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole and colistin with 75, 75, 50% and 50% respectively. The PCR assay was applied to identify fimA, eaeA, and sxt1virulence genes by using specific primers sets. The results reported that out of screening 10 stains , fimA gene was found in all examined strains (100%), while the eaeA gene was detected in 5 (50%) with no detection of sxt1 gene. In conclusion, the obtained results provide an important data about the relation between human disease and consumption of meat and milk products and understand the epidemiology and disease occurrence.