Journal of Microbial & Biochemical Technology

Occurence of virulence genes associated with diarrheagenic Escherichia coli isolated from raw cowâ??s milk from two commercial dairy farms in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

World Congress and Expo on Applied Microbiology

August 18-20, 2015 Frankfurt, Germany

Lesley-Anne Caine

University of Fort Hare, South Africa

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Microb Biochem Technol

Abstract:

Escherichia coli remains a public health concern worldwide as an organism that causes diarrhea and its reservoir in raw milk may play an important role in the survival and transport of pathogenic strains. Diarrheagenic E. coli strains are diverse food-borne pathogens and causes diarrhea with varying virulence in humans. We investigated the prevalence of pathogenic E. coli in raw milk from two commercial dairy farms. Four hundred raw milk samples, 200 from each dairy farm, were screened for the presence of fliCH7, eagR, ial, eae, lt, and papC genes. In dairy farm A, 100 E. coli were identified based on culture, oxidase and Gram staining, while 88 isolates from dairy farm B were identified in the same manner. Gene detection showed fliCH7 27 (54%) to be the highest gene detected from farm A and lt 2 (4%) to be the lowest. The highest gene detected in dairy farm B was fliCH7 16 (43.2%) and papC 1 (2.7%) was the least. The amplification of pathogenic genes associated with diarrheagenic E. coli from cowsâ?? raw milk demonstrates that potentially virulent E. coli strains are widely distributed in raw milk and may be a cause of concern for human health.

Biography :

Lesley-Anne Caine has completed her MSc in Microbiology (cum laude) in 2014 from University of Fort Hare and is currently doing her PhD in Microbiology. She has published one paper.