Isolation and molecular characterization of Escherichia coli O157 isolated from cattle, pigs and chickens at slaughter.

From 1999 until 2001, 3625 food samples were examined for the presence of Escherichia coli O157. Samples were from bovine origin (ground beef, n=549; carcasses, n=2452), calves (carcasses, n=147), chicken (breast, n=203; carcasses, n=71) and pigs (carcasses, n=85; trimmings, n=118). Vidas ECO detected 451 (12%) samples positive, but from only 27 (0.74%) samples was E. coli O157 isolated. One strain was isolated from bovine ground beef (0.18%), one from a pig carcass (1.17%) and all others were isolated from bovine carcasses (1.02%). All strains possessed the attaching-and-effacing gene, the enterohemorrhagic plasmid and verotoxin (VT) genes, except the strain isolated from the pig carcass that was therefore eliminated. Six of the strains were urease-positive. Strains were typed by two DNA fingerprinting methods: random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). PFGE revealed a similarity of 71.05%, while RAPD was 77.36% similar. None of the typing methods were able to classify all urease-positive strains to one pattern. Strains in the same PFGE cluster did not belong to one RAPD cluster. This paper highlights that Belgian fresh meat at retail level can be contaminated with E. coli O157 and that two different typing methods divide strains into different types.