Biochemical and Molecular Detection of Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) from Human and Porcine Diarrheic Cases in Assam, India

In North Eastern region of India pig rearing is an important livestock farming occupation with cohesive habitation of humans and pigs. A variety of diarrhoeal diseases in these two hosts occur due to pathogenic forms of E. coli harbouring virulence, specific colonisation factors and pathogenicity associated genes. 115 faecal samples were collected from human and pigsin Assam, India out of which 93 samples were positive for E. coli presence resulting in 80.80 percent positivity for isolation. Out of these, 51 were positive for human and 42 were positive for pig. The isolated E. coli confirmed by morphological and biochemical identification. Molecular characterisation studies targeting the virulence genes viz., stx₁, stx₂, eae for shiga toxin producing E. coli (STEC) was made by multiplex PCR using a cocktail of type specific primers. The presence of enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) among the positive isolates was identified by simplex PCR aiming the eae and bfp genes. Among the 51 human isolates, 20 were EPEC and none contained the bfp gene, signifying as atypical EPEC. However, none of the pig isolates were found to be typable. This baseline study on pathogenic form of E. coli may help in further serogrouping of the organism for diagnostics and pathogenesis implications.