Molecular characterization of Escherichia Coli isolates from food animals

The present study was carried out for isolation and molecular characterization of Escherichia coli from faecal and meat samples of food animals viz. cattle, pigs and poultry. A total of 66 E. coli isolates were recovered from 420 samples of different food animals and further confirmed by PCR targeting E. coli specific uidA gene. These isolates were sensitive to chloramphenicol and ciprofloxacin and resistant to ampicillin and cloxacillin. Out of 66 isolates, 42 were typed into 13 different ‘O’ serogroups, 13 untypable and remaining 11 were identified as rough. Serogroup O84, O101, O118, O120 and O147 were predominant and serogroup O118 was found to be common in the samples of all 3 species of food animals. Five (7.57%) and 3 (4.54%) of E. coli isolates were found to harbor virulent genes, stx2 and est, respectively. Twenty representative E. coli isolates selected randomly from 20 different locations were subjected to molecular typing by PCR targeting Repetitive Extragenic Palindromic (REP) sequences. The region specific molecular types of E. coli could not be detected by using REP-PCR based discrimination.