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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, September 1998, p. 3166-3174, Vol. 64, No. 9
Department of Microbiology, Molecular
Biology, and Biochemistry, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho 83844
Received 29 April 1998/Accepted 11 June 1998
Farm animal manure or manure slurry may disseminate, transmit, or
propagate Escherichia coli O157:H7. In this study, the
survival and growth of E. coli O157:H7 in ovine or
bovine feces under various experimental and environmental conditions
were determined. A manure pile collected from experimentally inoculated
sheep was incubated outside under fluctuating environmental conditions.
E. coli O157:H7 survived in the manure for 21 months, and the concentrations of bacteria recovered ranged from
<102 to 106 CFU/g at different times over the
course of the experiment. The DNA fingerprints of E. coli O157:H7 isolated at month 1 and month 12 were identical
or very similar. A second E. coli O157:H7-positive ovine manure pile, which was periodically aerated by mixing, remained culture positive for 4 months. An E. coli
O157:H7-positive bovine manure pile was culture positive for 47 days. In the laboratory, E. coli O157:H7 was
inoculated into feces, untreated slurry, or treated slurry and
incubated at
0099-2240/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Analysis of Escherichia coli O157:H7
Survival in Ovine or Bovine Manure and Manure Slurry
20, 4, 23, 37, 45, and 70°C. E. coli
O157:H7 survived best in manure incubated without aeration at
temperatures below 23°C, but it usually survived for shorter periods
of time than it survived in manure held in the environment. The
bacterium survived at least 100 days in bovine manure frozen at
20°C or in ovine manure incubated at 4 or 10°C for 100 days, but
under all other conditions the length of time that it survived ranged
from 24 h to 40 days. In addition, we found that the Shiga toxin
type 1 and 2 genes in E. coli O157:H7 had little
or no influence on bacterial survival in manure or manure slurry. The
long-term survival of E. coli O157:H7 in manure
emphasizes the need for appropriate farm waste management to curtail
environmental spread of this bacterium. This study also highlights the
difficulties in extrapolating laboratory data to on-farm conditions.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Microbiology, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83843. Phone: (208) 885-5906. Fax: (208) 885-6518. E-mail:
cbohach{at}uidaho.edu.
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