Molecular subtyping for Escherichia coli O157: H7 isolated in Taiwan.
Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157: H7 is an important pathogen these days. Outbreaks of its infection have been reported all over the world, in Australia, Canada, Japan, the United States, south Africa, and various countries in Europe. In the summer of 2001, the first clinical infection by E. coli O157: H7 was identified in Taiwan. In this study, the standard procedures for molecular subtyping were applied to several strains collected in Taiwan as well as from elsewhere. The two molecular subtyping methods we used are pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). The isolates from the U.S.A., Canada, Japan, and Taiwan each showed a unique molecular fingerprinting pattern. The environmental strains isolated in Taiwan showed closer relationships with each other, and their similarity was in the range of 75-85%. The first clinical strain isolated in Taiwan in 2001 was similar to the strains from North America but not closely related to the Taiwanese environmental strains. Our surveys showed that some local E. coli O157: H7 strains did exist in Taiwan, but there had been only one official case report of the infection by local E. coli O157: H7. The eating habits of the people and the geographic distribution of the pathogen are considered crucial risk factors in Taiwan. The establishment of a database of our own and joining the global network database are important tasks if we want to control such agricultural and food-borne pathogens, and reduce the number of victims and amount sufferings, as well as the economic losses due to the infection.
Tsai
Tsung-Yu
TY
Institute of Microbiology and Biochemistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei.
Luo
Wei-Chen
WC
Wu
Fang-Tzy
FT
Pan
Tzu-Ming
TM
D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D019453:Escherichia coli O157 / Q000145:classification* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000145:classification / Q000379:methods*; D013624:Taiwan