Occurrence and characterization of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and other serotypes in goat and sheep meat in India

Abstract

In the present study 307 goat and sheep meat samples were tested for Escherichia coli serotypes, which resulted in 4 Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) from goat meat. All the four isolates produced verotoxin as evident from the in-vitro vero cell assay and the multiplex PCR. Serotyping of these isolates indicated that one isolate belonged to serotype O157 (M2), 2 to serotype 071 (23 and C3) and 1 to 060 (M). Molecular typing also confirmed that, isolate M2 belonged to 0157 serotype with positive amplification for eae A and hly A primers. PCR with H7 gene specific primers, also gave positive amplification with isolate M2, indicating that this isolate belonged to 0157:H7 serotype. Further studies for antibiotic resistance indicated that the E. coli 0157HH7 isolate from goat meat had multiple antibiotic resistance.