Occurrence of Virulence Genes Associated with Diarrheagenic Escherichia coli Isolated from Raw Cow’s Milk from Two Commercial Dairy Farms in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Lesley-Anne Caine, Uchechukwu U. Nwodo, Anthony I. Okoh, Roland N. Ndip and Ezekiel Green
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Lesley-Anne Caine: Departments of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa
Uchechukwu U. Nwodo: Departments of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa
Anthony I. Okoh: Departments of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa
Roland N. Ndip: Departments of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa
Ezekiel Green: Departments of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-14

Abstract: Escherichia coli remains a public health concern worldwide as an organism that causes diarrhea and its reservoir in raw milk may play an important role in the survival and transport of pathogenic strains. Diarrheagenic E. coli strains are diverse food-borne pathogens and causes diarrhea with varying virulence in humans. We investigated the prevalence of pathogenic E. coli in raw milk from two commercial dairy farms. Four hundred raw milk samples, 200 from each dairy farm, were screened for the presence of fliCH7, eagR, ial, eagg, lt, and papC genes . In dairy farm A, 100 E. coli were identified based on culture, oxidase and Gram staining, while 88 isolates from dairy farm B were identified in the same manner. Gene detection showed fliCH7 27 (54%) to be the highest gene detected from farm A and lt 2 (4%) to be the lowest. The highest gene detected in dairy farm B was fliCH7 16 (43.2%) and papC 1 (2.7%) was the least. The amplification of pathogenic genes associated with diarrheagenic E. coli from cows’ raw milk demonstrates that potentially virulent E. coli strains are widely distributed in raw milk and may be a cause of concern for human health.

Keywords: Escherichia coli; virulence markers; raw milk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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