title: Prolonged and mixed non-O157 Escherichia coli infection in an Australian household.
abstract: An Australian family was identified through a Public Health follow up on a Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC) positive bloody diarrhoea case, with three of the four family members experiencing either symptomatic or asymptomatic STEC shedding. Bacterial isolates were submitted to stx sequence sub-typing, multi-locus variable number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA), multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) and binary typing. The analysis revealed that there were multiple strains of STEC being shed by the family members, with similar virulence gene profiles and the same serogroup but differing in their MLVA and MLST profiles. This study illustrates the potentially complicated nature of non-O157 STEC infections and the importance of molecular epidemiology in understanding disease clusters.
authors.affiliation: Public Health Microbiology, Communicable Disease, Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services, Brisbane, QLD 4108, Australia.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Staples
authors.forename: R M A
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Graham
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Doyle
authors.forename: H V
authors.initials: HV
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Jennison
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D057138:Bacterial Shedding; D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D002353:Carrier State / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000635:transmission; D060085:Coinfection / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000635:transmission; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics; D003967:Diarrhea / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D004927:Escherichia coli Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000635:transmission; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018598:Minisatellite Repeats; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D054323:Shiga-Toxigenic Escherichia coli / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial