Verotoxic <i style="">Escherichia coli</i> (STEC) from beef and its products

Abstract

In the present investigation, out of 27 (24.10%) strains of <i style="">Escherichia coli </i>isolated from 112 beef samples comprising raw meat (45), kabab (36) and kofta (31), 9 (33.33%) belonging to 7 different serotypes were verotoxic as tested by vero cell cytotoxic assay. Serotype O145 was the predominant STEC in raw meat. Interestingly, one STEC-O157 strain was also detected. All the STEC strains were positive for <i style="">Stx</i> genes by polymerase chain reaction showing <i style="">stx₂</i>(77.78%) to be most predominant followed by <i style="">stx₁</i> (22.22%). Phenotypic enterohaemolysin production on washed sheep blood agar supplemented with CaCl₂revealed 6 (66.67%) STEC strains to be positive. Presence of STEC in cooked beef products, <i style="">viz</i>., kabab and kofta appeared to be a matter of concern and potential threat to public health.