Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) are important human pathogens, causing hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic uraemic syndrome in humans. E. coliO157:H7 is the most common serotype associated with EHEC infections worldwide, although other non-O157 serotypes cause life-threatening infections. Cattle are a main reservoir of EHEC and intervention strategies aimed at limiting EHEC excretion fr...

We used bovine intestinal organ culture to study infection by enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli serogroups O157, O26, and O111. We show colonization and attaching and effacing lesion formation on explants derived from the ileum, colon, and rectum. Intimin and Tir were detected at the sites of adherent bacteria; Tir was essential for colonization.

A recent case report of a child infected with enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) of serotype O118:H16 in Bavaria, in association with the isolation of a bovine O118 strain on the same farm (A. Weber, H. Klie, H. Richter, P. Gallien, M. Timm, and K. W. Perlberg, Berl. Muench. Tieraerztl. Wochenschr. 110:211-213, 1997), prompted us to investigate the relationship between bovine and human s...

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) are important human pathogens, causing hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic uraemic syndrome in humans. E. coli O157:H7 is the most common serotype associated with EHEC infections worldwide, although other non-O157 serotypes cause life-threatening infections. Cattle are a main reservoir of EHEC and intervention strategies aimed at limiting EHEC excretion f...

A collection of 1601 extraintestinal and intestinal Escherichia coli isolated from chickens, turkeys and ducks, in Belgium, France and Spain, was hybridised with gene probes specific for fimbrial and afimbrial adhesins (F17, F18, S , Bfp, Afa, Cs31A, Intimin , Aida-1) of intestinal, urinary and invasive E. coli of mammals and with a probe specific for the P (Pap/Prs) fimbrial adhe...

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) triggers a dramatic rearrangement of the host epithelial cell actin cytoskeleton to form an attaching and effacing lesion, or pedestal. The pathogen remains attached extracellularly to the host cell through the pedestal for the duration of the infection. At the tip of the pedestal is a bacterial protein, Tir, which is secreted from the bacterium into the...

Fourteen Escherichia coli O157 strains isolated from cattle and pigs in Poland and in Germany were investigated, using PCR, for the genetic markers associated with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC). Only two strains, both of cattle origin, were positive for the fliC (H7) gene and could be classified as O157 : H7. Nine isolates had stx shiga toxin genes, either stx1 (1 strain), stx2 (4 isolat...

Life-threatening intestinal and systemic effects of the Shiga toxins produced by enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) require toxin uptake and transcytosis across intestinal epithelial cells. We have recently demonstrated that EHEC infection of intestinal epithelial cells stimulates toxin macropinocytosis, an actin-dependent endocytic pathway. Host actin rearrangement necessary for EHEC at...