Investigation of potential Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli(STEC)associated with a local foodborne outbreak using multidisciplinary approaches

Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli(STEC)outbreak is a public health concern as it can potentially cause a variety of clinical manifestations including diarrhea,hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic uremic syndrome(HUS).However E.coli are generally innocuous commensal organisms,and there is a need to discriminate pathogenic from non-pathogenic isolates rapidly and accurately.In this study,we have used standard culture based methods and advanced molecular approaches to characterize E.coli in food in a local outbreak investigation.We show that the application of DNA based detection methods including real-time PCR and DNA microarray along with a traditional culture method can identify the organism implicated in an outbreak at the strain level for pathogenic potential.