Research Publications (Food Safety)

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) serotype O103 is one of the primary pathogenic contaminants of beef products, contributing to several foodborne outbreaks in recent years. Here, we report the whole-genome sequence of a STEC O103:H2 strain isolated from cattle feces that contains a locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE) pathogenicity island.

Aims The purpose of this study was to investigate the occurrence of E. coli O157 and O26 on Belgian dairy cattle farms, the presence of virulence genes in the confirmed isolates, and the association of E. coli O26 presence with calf diarrhea. Methods and Results In total, 233 recto‐anal mucosal swabs (RAMS) were obtained from healthy and diarrheic dairy calves on three farms, each alternately visited three consecutive times. RAMS were analyzed for presence of E.

The research showed that ruminant animal is the primary factor contributing to the prevalence of the STEC‐infecting phages on the organic farm in this study. Among environmental factors, high rain precipitation is likely to facilitate phage distribution in the surrounding environment of the farm. Most importantly, the presence of these phages has a negative correlation with their STEC hosts.

Author(s): Lanlin Yu, Su Zhang, Yuanyuan Xu, Xiaoyu Mi, Tong Xing, Jiaolong Li, Lin Zhang, Feng Gao, Yun Jiang

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) is a leading cause of foodborne infections. Cattle are an important STEC reservoir, although little is known about specific pathogen traits that impact persistence in the farm environment. Hence, we sought to evaluate STEC isolates recovered from beef cattle in a single herd in Michigan. To do this, we collected fecal grabs from 26 cattle and resampled 13 of these animals at 3 additional visits over a 3-month period.

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are major foodborne human pathogens that cause mild to hemorrhagic colitis, which could lead to complications of hemolytic uremic syndrome.  Seven serogroups, O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, O145 and O157, account for the majority of the STEC illnesses in the US.

Pathogen thermal resistance studies on low-water activity foods (LWAF) use a variety of methods to inoculate food, as well as strategies to reduce water activity, which can influence thermal resistance observations.

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) is an enteric pathogen that causes several gastrointestinal ailments in humans across the world. STEC’s ability to cause ailment is attributed to the presence of a broad range of known and putative virulence factors (VFs) including those that encode Shiga toxins. A total of 51 E.

Author(s): Yu Zhang, Kumiko Shigemura, Hoang Minh Duc, Cunkuan Shen, Hung-Hsin Huang, Jun Sato, Yoshimitsu Masuda, Ken-ichi Honjoh, Takahisa Miyamoto

Escherichia coli carrying prophage with genes that encode for Shiga toxins are categorized as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) pathotype. Illnesses caused by STEC in humans, which are often foodborne, range from mild to bloody diarrhea with life-threatening complications of renal failure and hemolytic uremic syndrome and even death, particularly in children. As many as 158 of the total 187 serogroups of E.

Author(s): Prashant Singh, Gabriel Cubillos, Gabrielle Kirshteyn, Joseph M. Bosilevac

Author(s): Changbao Wang, Hua Hang, Shoubiao Zhou, Yan D. Niu, Hechao Du, Kim Stanford, Tim A. McAllister

Decontamination practices, which often involve thermal treatments, are routinely performed in beef packing plants and have generally improved the safety of meat in North America. We investigated whether Escherichia coli in the beef production chain is becoming more heat resistant due to those treatments. Cattle isolates (n = 750) included seven serogroups (O157, O103, O111, O121, O145, O26, and O45) which were collected between 2002 and 2017.

Calf diarrhea is one of the considerable infectious diseases in calves, which results in tremendous economic losses globally. To determine the prevalence of Shiga-toxigenic E. coli (STEC) and Enterotoxigenic E.

Aims The goal was to explore the effects of subinhibitory concentration (SIC) (0.5 MIC=20 µg L‐1) of ciprofloxacin on the transcriptome of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O26:H11 (EHEC) isolate by 60 minutes of exposure. Materials and Results We used a combination of comparative genomic and transcriptomic (RNAseq) analyses. The whole genome of the E. coli O26:H11 #30934 strain of bovine origin was sequenced and assembled.

There is increasing evidence that diversity changes in bacterial communities of beef cattle correlates to the presence of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC). However, studies that found an association between STEC and bacterial diversity have been focused on pre-slaughter stages in the beef supply chain.

Bacteriophages, natural killers of bacteria, and plant secondary metabolites, such as condensed tannins, are potential agents for the control of foodborne pathogens. The first objective of this study evaluated the efficacy of a bacteriophage SA21RB in reducing pre-formed biofilms on stainless-steel produced by two Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) strains, one from South Africa and the other from Canada.

In this work, we present a magnetic bead–based immunosensorss for the determination of Escherichia coli O26 in milk. The assay uses commercial Dynabeads® for the capture of the target bacteria from 6-h enrichment broth and horseradish peroxidase–labelled polyclonal antibodies and detection of the peroxidase activity by chronoamperometry. Bovine seroalbumin was used as blocking reagent for reducing the binding of non-specific antibodies to the beads and/or other bacteria.

This research study was based on ultraviolet (UVC) light and a combination of UVC-ozone treatments that have recently received attention from the beef processing industry as antimicrobial interventions that leave no chemical residues on products. The objectives were to evaluate effectiveness of UVC and UVC in combination with gaseous ozone treatments for inactivation of pathogenic bacteria on fresh beef and the impact on fresh beef quality.

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) strains are important zoonotic foodborne pathogens, causing diarrhea, hemorrhagic colitis, and life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) in humans. However, antibiotic treatment of STEC infection is associated with an increased risk of HUS. Therefore, there is an urgent need for early and effective therapeutic strategies.

Domestic and wild animal intrusions are identified as a food safety risk during fresh produce production. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the survival of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in cattle, feral pig, waterfowl, deer, and raccoon feces from sources in California, Delaware, Florida, and Ohio. Fecal samples were inoculated with a cocktail of rifampicin resistant STEC (O103, O104, O111, O145, and O157 (104 to 106 CFU/g feces).

Typical hemolytic uremic syndrome (STEC‐HUS), caused by Shiga toxin (Stx)‐producing Escherichia coli (STEC), is a serious, life‐threating disease that mainly affects children. Bacteriological and genetic tests are commonly used in the routine laboratory diagnosis of STEC‐HUS; however, serological methods have emerged as useful and reliable diagnostic tools, especially when bacterial isolation fails.

It is well established that intravenous administration of lipopolysaccharides (LPS)—cell wall components from gram-negative bacteria—induce acute inflammatory responses in dairy calves, but the effect of oral administration of LPS to dairy calves is currently unknown.

Author(s): Marie Frétin, Christophe Chassard, Céline Delbès, René Lavigne, Etienne Rifa, Sébastien Theil, Benoit Fernandez, Patrice Laforce, Cécile Callon

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are important foodborne pathogens and non-O157 serotypes have been gradually increasing in frequency. The non-O157 STEC population is diverse and is often characterized using serotyping and/or multilocus sequence typing (MLST). Although spacers within clustered regularly interspaced repeat (CRISPR) regions were shown to comprise horizontally acquired DNA elements, this region does not actively acquire spacers in STEC.