Study on serotypes and virulence genes of foodborne diarrheogenic Escherichia coli

The main purpose of the research is to define serotypes and virulence factors of foodborne diarrheogenic Escherichia coli in Zhejiang Province. The distribution characteristics of serotypes and virulence factors of strains collected from food surveillance were detected by serotyping and multiple polymerase chain reaction ( PCR) .Of all 69 strains, the most frequent identified serotypes were O148 ( 16) , O159 ( 11) , O6 ( 4) , O15 ( 4) , O63 ( 4) and O78 ( 3) , the total number of these serotypes was 42, which accounted for 60.9% of the strains. And 42, 25, 15, 14, 14 strains were positive for ast A, est Ib, pic, esc V, aggR gene, respectively. Among these, 25 strains harbored both ast A and est Ib genes, representing the common type. Furthermore, O148 and O159 strains harboring ast A and est Ib genes posed a potential threat to food safety. Results showed that EAEC and ETEC harboring ast A and est Ib genes were the dominant bacteria types, mainly belonging to serotype O148 and O159, among foodborne diarrheogenic Escherichia coli in Zhejiang Province.