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Appl. Environ. Microbiol. doi:10.1128/AEM.02566-07
Copyright (c) 2008, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Molecular analysis as an aid to assess the public health risk of non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli

Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada L8N 3Z5; Laboratory for Foodborne Zoonoses, Public Health Agency of Canada, Guelph, ON; Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC; Department of Microbiology and Immunology, McGill University, Montreal, QC

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: coombes{at}mcmaster.ca.

	Abstract

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are commensal bacteria in cattle with high potential for environmental and zoonotic transmission to humans. Although O157:H7 is the most common STEC serotype, there is growing concern over the emergence of more than 200 highly virulent non-O157 STEC serotypes that are globally distributed, several of which are associated with outbreaks and/or severe human illness such as hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and hemorrhagic colitis. Currently the underlying genetic basis of virulence potential in non-O157 STEC is unknown, although horizontal gene transfer and the acquisition of new pathogenicity islands is an expected origin. We used seropathotype classification as a framework to identify genetic elements that distinguish non-O157 STEC posing a serious risk to humans from STEC that are not associated with severe and epidemic disease. We report the identification of three genomic islands encoding non-LEE effectors (nle genes) and 14 individual nle genes in non-O157 STEC that correlate independently with outbreak and HUS potential in humans. The implications for transmissible zoonotic spread and public health are discussed. These results and methods offer a molecular risk assessment strategy to rapidly recognize and respond to non-O157 STEC from environmental and animal sources that might pose serious public health risks to humans.

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