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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2003, p. 1089-1092, Vol. 69, No. 2
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.2.1089-1092.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Geographical Variation in Ribotype Profiles of Escherichia coli Isolates from Humans, Swine, Poultry, Beef, and Dairy Cattle in Florida
Troy M. Scott,1 Salina Parveen,2 Kenneth M. Portier,3 Joan B. Rose,1 Mark L. Tamplin,4 Samuel R. Farrah,5 Andrew Koo,6 and Jerzy Lukasik5,6*
College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg,1
Department of Statistics,3
Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, University of Florida,5
Biological Consulting Services of North Florida, Inc., Gainesville, Florida,6
Food Science and Technology Program, Department of Agriculture and Human Ecology, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Princess Anne, Maryland ,2
Microbial Food Safety Research Unit, Agricultural Research Unit, Eastern Regional Research Center, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania4
Received 28 March 2002/
Accepted 20 November 2002

ABSTRACT
Waters impacted by fecal pollution can exact high risks to human
health and can result in financial losses due to closures of
water systems used for recreation and for harvesting seafood.
Identifying the sources of fecal pollution in water is paramount
in assessing the potential human health risks involved as well
as in assessing necessary remedial action. Recently, various
researchers have used the ribotyping method to identify sources
of bacterial indicators (
Escherichia coli and enterococci) in
environmental waters. While these studies have identified genotypic
differences between human- and animal-derived indicators that
are capable of differentiating organisms isolated from humans
and various animal hosts, most have focused on organisms collected
from a confined geographic area and have not addressed the question
of whether these ribotype profiles are watershed specific or
if they can be applied universally to organisms from other geographic
locations. In this study,
E. coli isolates were obtained from
humans, beef cattle, dairy cattle, swine, and poultry from locations
in northern, central, and southern Florida and were subjected
to ribotyping analysis. The intent was to determine (i) if ribotype
profiles are capable of discriminating the source of
E. coli at the host species level and (ii) if the resulting fingerprints
are uniform over an extended geographic area or if they can
be applied only to a specific watershed. Our research indicated
that, using a single restriction enzyme (
HindIII), the ribotyping
procedure is not capable of differentiating
E. coli isolates
from the different animal species sampled in this study. Results
indicate, however, that this procedure can still be used effectively
to differentiate
E. coli as being either human or animal derived
when applied to organisms isolated from a large geographic region.

INTRODUCTION
Fecal pollution affects the quality and safety of many water
systems and can originate from a variety of human and nonhuman
sources. Human fecal material is generally considered to be
of greater risk to human health as it is more likely to contain
human enteric pathogens (e.g.,
Shigella spp.,
Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, hepatitis A virus, and Norwalk group viruses).
However, other enteric pathogens are shared with animals (e.g.,
various serotypes of
Salmonella and
Escherichia coli). Many
of these human pathogens are not readily detectable in the environment
by conventional methods as they are often present in very low
numbers; furthermore, many of them have a very low infectious
dose, which renders even a low prevalence in polluted waters
hazardous to human health. Therefore, the prediction of their
presence and potential associated health risks is typically
performed by the detection of established indicators of fecal
pollution.
E. coli has long been used as an indicator of fecal pollution (2). It has good characteristics as an indicator, such as not normally being pathogenic to humans and being present at concentrations much higher than those of the pathogens it predicts. However, it is well established that E. coli is not limited to humans; it also exists in the intestines of many other warm-blooded animals (5). Consequently, when it is detected in water with conventional bacteriological tests, its source and the full extent of potential human health risks cannot be determined.
Testing methods capable of identifying E. coli or other indicator organisms as being derived from a specific host aid in the assessment of the potential health risks associated with their presence in a specific watershed. Multiple methods have been developed for this purpose, and this area of research has been collectively termed microbial source tracking.
One of these methods, ribotyping, has been used by several researchers to discriminate between closely related strains of bacteria as well as to track sources of fecal contamination (1, 3, 4, 6-11). While these studies have shown genotypic differences between human- and animal-derived indicators, most have focused on isolates collected from a confined geographic area and have not addressed the question of whether these profiles are watershed specific or if they can be applied universally to organisms from other geographic locations.
In this study, E. coli isolated from humans, beef cattle, dairy cattle, swine, and poultry were collected from locations in northern, central, and southern Florida and subjected to ribotyping analysis. The intent was to determine if ribotype profiles (i) were capable of discriminating the source of E. coli at the host species level and (ii) were specific for a particular animal source in a specific confined or broad geographical region.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Collection of fecal samples from livestock and humans.
Composite fecal samples were collected from swine, poultry,
dairy cattle, and beef cattle farms in three geographical regions
of Florida over seasonal time intervals. Samples from dairy
cattle farms were collected from retention ponds containing
stall flush water located in Greenville (north), Hague (central),
and Okeechobee (south). The dairy farms were at least 100 miles
apart (maximum, 200 miles). Samples from beef cattle farms were
collected from composite manure pits and flush water retention
ponds in Lake City (north), Alachua (central), and Okeechobee
(south). The beef farms were at least 50 miles apart (maximum,
200 miles). Samples from swine farms were collected from retention
ponds located in Grand Ridge (north), Gainesville (central),
and Dade City (south). Swine farms were at least 80 miles apart
(maximum, 230 miles). Samples from chicken farms were collected
from retention ponds located in Bushnell (north), Dade City
(central), and Zolfo Springs (south). Poultry farms were at
least 30 miles apart (maximum, 110 miles). Water samples were
collected from at least three locations within the retention
ponds, and at least three separate samples from composite manure
pits were collected from each farm (where applicable). Human
isolates were obtained directly from human volunteers, residential
septic systems, and sewage lines that have no animal impact.
Human-impacted sewage lines were identified as those located
at points directly adjacent to buildings on the University of
Florida campus. Samples were collected from outflow pipes which
were not impacted by storm water runoff. After collection, all
samples were stored at 4°C, transported to the laboratory
in refrigerated (4°C) coolers, and processed within 24 h.
A summary of the types of isolates and samples taken is shown
in Table
1.
Isolation of E. coli.
Fecal samples were streaked onto MacConkey agar plates (Difco)
within 24 h of collection. Plates were incubated at 37°C
for 24 h, and lactose-positive colonies were picked and subcultured
into Luria broth (Difco) containing 4-methylumbelliferyl-ß-
D-glucuronide
(MUG) substrate (Sigma, Inc.). MUG-positive isolates were presumed
to be
E. coli and were verified by using the IMViC series of
tests (indole, methyl red, Voges-Proskauer, citrate). Isolates
exhibiting ++-- IMViC profiles were confirmed as
E. coli.
Ribotype profile database.
Over 3,000 human- and nonhuman-derived E. coli isolates had been collected previously and were used in the establishment of an original database for isolate classification by ribotype profile and discriminate analysis (8; unpublished source isolates). This database was tested for use in discriminating human versus animal isolates in the latter portion of this study.
DNA extraction.
E. coli isolates were grown overnight in Luria-Bertani broth, and DNA was extracted with a Masterpure DNA purification kit (Epicentre, Madison, Wis.) according to the manufacturer's instructions.
Determination of DNA concentration.
DNA concentration was determined with a TKO 100 fluorometer according to the manufacturer's instructions.
Restriction enzyme digestion.
Approximately 1 µg of DNA was digested with the HindIII restriction enzyme (Roche Molecular Biochemicals) according to the manufacturer's instructions. Digested DNA was separated on a 1.0% agarose gel at 30 V for 16 h in 1x Tris-borate-EDTA buffer, stained with ethidium bromide, and viewed under UV light.
Southern blot analysis.
After electrophoresis of restriction-digested DNA, agarose gels containing restricted DNA were depurinated in 0.2 M HCl for 10 min, denatured in 0.5 M NaOH-1.5 M NaCl for 35 min, and neutralized for 45 min in a buffer containing 0.5 M Tris-HCl (pH 7.2), 1.5 M NaCl, and 0.1 mM disodium EDTA. DNA was blotted from gels onto nylon membranes (Bio-Rad) with a vacuum blotting system (VacuGene XL) and fixed with shortwave UV light for 5 min.
Probe preparation.
E. coli 16S and 23S rRNA (Sigma, Inc.) was reverse transcribed into cDNA with avian reverse transcriptase and labeled with digoxigenin (DIG)-dUTP according to the manufacturer's instructions (Roche Molecular Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany).
Hybridization and detection.
Membranes were prehybridized at 65°C for 30 min in 20 mM Na2HPO4-7% sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) (pH 7.2) and then hybridized in the same solution containing the DIG-labeled probe at 65°C for 16 h. After hybridization, membranes were washed twice for 60 min, each time with 20 mM Na2HPO4-5% SDS (pH 7.2) at 65°C, followed by two washes for 30 min with 20 mM Na2HPO4-1% SDS (pH 7.2) at 65°C. Membranes were then reacted with an alkaline phosphatase-conjugated anti-DIG antibody and visualized by using nitroblue tetrazolium and 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolylphosphate for colorimetric detection according to the manufacturer's instructions (Roche Molecular Diagnostics).
Statistical analysis of ribotype profiles as predictors of source.
Ribotype banding profiles were read by hand, and DNA fragments were translated into binary code, where the presence or absence of bands at a specific length was recorded as a 1 or 0, respectively. Binary codes were examined by using statistical discrimination methodology as implemented in SAS (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, N.C.). Discriminate-analysis results were summarized, and the performance of the discriminating functions was defined by the average rate of correct classification and the percentages of correctly classified and misclassified isolates in a classification table created by using 10-fold cross-validation. An initial analysis examined the ability of ribotype profiles to predict the source of an isolate as to the primary farm animal (beef cattle, dairy cattle, poultry, and swine). A second analysis examined the ability of ribotype profiles to predict the source of an isolate from a comparison of the ribotypes of the livestock and human isolates collected in this study to our preexisting ribotype database. This second analysis demonstrated the degree to which human source isolates differ from farm animal and nonhuman source isolates in ribotype profiles and helps to identify a subset of ribotype profiles that might be useful as indicators of human source E. coli.

RESULTS
Over 1,800
E. coli were isolated from dairy cattle, beef cattle,
swine, and poultry from north, central, and south Florida farm
ponds during the spring, summer, fall, and winter seasons, and
317 of these were analyzed by ribotyping. In addition, 84 human
isolates were ribotyped and subjected to discriminate analysis.
The ribotype profiles were not successful in discriminating
E. coli isolated from the four animal types as shown in Table
2. For this analysis, 34 ribotype profile bands were entered
into a quadratic discriminate model with prior probabilities
of group membership assumed to be proportional to group frequency
(beef, 26.8%; dairy, 25.9%; poultry, 25.2%; swine, 22.1%). The
beef and dairy isolates were collectively classified as dairy,
and nearly one-half of the poultry and swine isolates are also
classified as dairy. The overall misclassification rate was
65.3%. Individual misclassification rates were 94, 20, 67.5,
and 81.4% for beef, dairy, poultry, and swine, respectively.
Attempts were made using stepwise discriminate analysis techniques
to find alternate discrimination models using fewer ribotype
bands to achieve the same level of success. Most subset models
produced higher misclassification rates, with more isolates
being classified as dairy. Animal misclassification as a function
of location (north, central, and south Florida ponds and farms)
was also looked at. The pattern of misclassification was consistent
for all locations (data not shown).
Canonical discriminate analysis was used to illustrate the difficulty of classification among the farm pond isolates. For this analysis, a set of linear functions that best separated the classes in the directions of most variability was determined. The coefficients from each linear function were used with the indicator of presence or absence of a ribotype band to develop a score for the isolate. If the animal groups were well separated, scatter plots of the canonical scores would show well-separated scatters for the classes. Figure 1 shows the scatter plot of the ribotype data from the livestock isolates. The four animal classes are not visually separated, illustrating the difficulty in separating the livestock groups. The problem is primarily due to the fact that the more common ribotype profiles are often found multiple times in each type of animal. Most isolates were classified as dairy; however, most isolates have ribotype profiles that look alike. Therefore, the dairy label is used for convenience and not as an indication of anything unique regarding the dairy livestock class.
Ribotype profiles from the human and nonhuman isolates were
originally used to construct a discrimination function as discussed
by Parveen et al. (
8). This function was used in this project
to determine the fraction of farm pond isolate ribotype profiles
that would be considered as more likely to come from a human
source than a nonhuman source. As shown in Table
3, 78.6% (
n = 249) of farm pond isolates were classified as likely to come
from a nonhuman source and the remaining 21.4% (
n = 68) were
classified as human source. In addition, the human isolates
collected as part of this study were correctly classified 84.5%
(
n = 71) of the time and misclassified 15.5% (
n = 13) of the
time. This further supports the idea that it may be possible
to differentiate human- from animal-derived
E. coli over a broad
geographic region via the single-enzyme (
HindIII) ribotyping
procedure. The additional results from this study suggest that
it will be much more difficult to discriminate between
E. coli isolated from multiple nonhuman sources by using this methodology.
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TABLE 3. Classification of ribotype profiles generated from E. coli isolated from humans and livestock as human or nonhumana
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DISCUSSION
The intent of this study was to evaluate the ability of a single-enzyme
ribotyping protocol to differentiate between
E. coli isolates
from various livestock over a broad geographic range. Although
this protocol has been used within a confined watershed with
success (
4,
8), no information that evaluates the usefulness
of this procedure over a larger geographic range is available
in the literature. The results of this study indicate that this
procedure may not be useful for this purpose. However, although
a two-enzyme protocol was not evaluated in our present study,
recent research indicates that such a protocol may be useful
for this purpose and should be the focus of additional investigation
(
4,
9). The alternative procedure is more costly and labor intensive,
however, which is an inherent drawback of the ribotyping method.
In the present study,
E. coli isolates were collected from southern,
central, and northern Florida from beef, dairy, poultry, and
swine farms. Ribotype profiles were generated from each type
of animal in each geographic location until no profile variation
was observed. These profiles were then cross-referenced within
and among animal sources, and assessments as to whether they
provided discriminatory information were made. Overlap of ribotype
profiles within and among animal groups was significant. Reasons
for the significant overlap in ribotype profiles, which subsequently
resulted in an inability to differentiate sources of
E. coli using this procedure, are not known. However, one significant
difference between this study and a previous study by Carson
et al. (
1) is the diversity of the sample collection and, in
particular, the type of samples collected. Whereas Carson et
al. collected fecal samples predominantly from central Missouri
from a relatively small number of individuals, we collected
E. coli from a larger geographic region. Furthermore, the samples
collected as part of that study were composite fecal samples
from lagoons or compost pits. In our study, care was taken to
ensure that samples were collected from farms housing only one
type of animal. It is possible, however, that fecal material
from other animals (e.g., birds) could also be present in the
samples, which could have potentially caused an overlap in results
obtained by ribotyping analysis. We believe, however, that the
majority of organisms would have originated from the indicated
animal simply due to the relative abundance of feces entering
the lagoons or compost pits. This type of sample collection
procedure was chosen because it is likely that these samples
would contain isolates having the most potential environmental
impact. In addition, it is likely that this type of sample would
contain isolates that have been subjected to various external
stressors, which would result in collection of organisms more
likely to survive and more representative of those one would
expect to find in the environment. Our results show significant
overlap of ribotype profiles, perhaps indicating an ability
of a subset of
E. coli found within a variety of animal hosts
to thrive in the environment. Therefore, a possible conclusion
of the present study is that a combination of geographic and
environmental variation may play a significant role in affecting
the ability of ribotyping to identify sources of
E. coli in
the environment.
One significant result of this study was that ribotype profiles from E. coli isolated from animals still differed significantly from those obtained from human isolates. Therefore, it appears that this method may have far-reaching capacity for discriminating between E. coli isolates collected from animals and those collected from humans. Overall, the correct classification of animal-derived E. coli isolates as being either human or animal derived was greater than 78%, while the human-derived isolates collected as part of this study were correctly classified greater than 85% of the time. Although there is not an established standard of accuracy that has been defined for any bacterial source tracking method, any method with a correct rate of classification of over 50% has been considered as a worthwhile tool for predicting the potential sources of fecal pollution in environmental waters. Therefore, the results of this study indicate that the ribotyping procedure continues to have merit as a viable molecular tool to be used for this purpose.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (NMFF grant NA97FD0065).

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Biological Consulting Services of N. Florida, Inc., 4641 NW 6th St., Suite A, Gainesville, FL 32609. Phone: (352) 377-9272. Fax: (352) 377-5630. E-mail:
lukasik{at}gator.net.

Florida Agricultural Experiment Station Journal Series no. R-09019. 

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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2003, p. 1089-1092, Vol. 69, No. 2
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.2.1089-1092.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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