Occurrence of Virulent and Antibiotic-resistant Enteropathogenic and Shiga toxin- producing Escherichia coli in some Milk Products Sold in Assiut City, Egypt

Abstract

This study was undertaken to detect the enteropathogenic and shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (EPEC and STEC) in 120 milk products samples (soft cheese, hard cheese, yoghurt and ice cream). All samples were submitted for bacteriological examination, serological and molecular identification of virulent and antibiotic resistant genes using eaeA, hylA, bla_TEM, bla_CTX-M1, bla_OXA and bla_SHV primers. The bacteriological examination revealed that the incidence of occurrence of EPEC was 3.33% in ice cream samples, while it could not isolated from other types of milk products. In addition, STEC failed to detect in all examined milk products. The isolated EPEC strain following E. coli O18 serotyping. Moreover, the molecular identification of the isolated strain revealed that the strain contains eaeA, bla_TEM and bla_CTX-M1 genes.