Escherichia coli isolates (72 commensal and 10 O157:H7 isolates) were compared with regard to physiological and growth parameters related to their ability to survive and persist in the gastrointestinal tract and found to be similar. We propose that nonhuman hosts in E. coli O157:H7 strains function similarly to other E. coli strains in regard to attributes relevant to gastrointestinal colonizat...

Postweaning diarrhea in pigs is frequently caused by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli K88 (ETEC). The aim of this study was to test the efficacy of E. coli probiotics (PRO) in young pigs challenged with E. coli K88. We also tested the synbiotic interaction with raw potato starch (RPS), which can be used as a prebiotic. Forty 17-day-old weaned piglets were randomly assigned to four treatments: t...

We previously reported that the strains of Escherichia coli O157:H7 (EcO157) that survived longer in austere soil environment lacked expression of curli, a fitness trait linked with intestinal colonization. In addition, the proportion of curli-positive variants of EcO157 decreased with repeated soil exposure. Here we evaluated 84 and 176 clinical strains from outbreaks and sporadic infections i...

Background: The radiation emitted from electromagnetic fields (EMF) can cause biological effects on prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, including non-thermal effects. Objective: The present study evaluated the non-thermal effects of wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) operating at 2.4 GHz part of non-ionizing EMF on different pathogenic bacterial strains (Escherichia coli 0157H7, Staphylococcus aureu...

Verocytotoxins VT1 and VT2,produced by Verocytotoxigenic Escherichia coli (VTEC), are encoded on temperate bacteriophages. Several studies reported the loss of the vtx genes after multiple subcultivation steps or long preservation. The objective of this study was to determine if the loss of the verocytotoxin genes can already occur during the first subcultivation step. Consequently, the stabili...

Escherichia coli is a normal inhabitant of the gastrointestinal tract of all warm-blooded animals, but variants of this species is also among the important etiological agents of enteritis and several extraintestinal diseases. The E. coli strains that cause diarrhoeal illness are categorised into pathogenicity groups based on virulence properties, mechanisms of pathogenicity, clinical symptoms a...

Escherichia coli strains are among the major bacterial causes of diarrheal illness. At least 5 categories of diarrheagenic E. coli (DEC) are recognized, namely enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC), enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC), enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC), enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC), and enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC). Due to the need for costly and labor-intensive diagnostic procedures,...

Foodborne diseases occur worldwide, including those acquired through the consumption of contaminated meat. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of enterotoxigenic Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella and Escherichia coli pathotypes in different meat types. Forty meat samples fresh (n=35) and frozen (n=5) were purchased from local markets in Jenin district, Palestine. Multiplex PCR was us...