Comparison of enterotoxigenicEscherichia coliisolated from surface water and diarrhoeal stool samples in Bangladesh

Abstract

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is a common cause of bacterial infection leading to acute watery diarrhea in infants and young children. Although the prevalence of ETEC is high in Bangladesh and infections can be spread through food and contaminated water, limited information is available about ETEC in the surface water. We carried out studies to isolate ETEC from surface water samples from ponds, rivers, and a lake from a site close to field areas known to have a high incidence of diarrhea in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Matlab, Bangladesh. ETEC strains isolated from the water sources were compared with ETEC strains isolated from patients with diarrhea at two hospitals in these areas. ETEC were isolated from 30% (45 of 150) of the samples from the surface water sources and 19% (518 of 2700) of the clinical specimens. One hundred ETEC strains isolated from patients with similar phenotypes as the environmental strains were compared for phenotypic and genotypic properties. The most common O serogroups on ETEC were O6, O25, O78, O115, and O126 in both types of strains. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analyses of the ETEC strains showed that multiple clones of ETEC were present within each colonization factor type and that some clones detected in the environment were also isolated from the stools of patients. The strains showed multiple and similar antibiotic resistance patterns. This study shows that ETEC is prevalent in surface water sources in Bangladesh suggesting a possible reason for the endemicity of this pathogen in Bangladesh.

Shift in Phenotypic Characteristics of Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) Isolated from Diarrheal Patients in Bangladesh

“…The ‘O’-antigenic serogrouping was carried out following standard method using eight commercially available polyvalent and 43 monovalent antisera (Denka Seiken) [16].…”

Comparison of fecal indicators with pathogenic bacteria and rotavirus in groundwater

“…Human pathogenic microorganisms, including rotavirus (Lodder et al, 2010; Verheyen et al, 2009), Shigella (Faruque et al, 2002), Vibrio (Alam et al, 2006) and pathogenic Escherichia coli ( E. coli ) (Begum et al, 2007; Momba et al, 2006) are readily detected worldwide in surface water and more recently in low concentrations in groundwater (Borchardt et al, 2003a; Gibson and Schwab, 2011; Hunt et al, 2010; Wampler and Sisson, 2011). The increasing identification of pathogens in groundwater is troubling because there is a general belief that groundwater does not require treatment before drinking.…”

Survival and gene expression of enterotoxigenicEscherichia coliduring long-term incubation in sea water and freshwater

“…The bacteria are pathogenic because of their production of a heat‐stable toxin (ST) and/or a heat‐labile toxin (LT) and fimbrial or fibrillar colonization factors (CF’s). The bacteria may be transmitted via contaminated food and water and in endemic countries, like Bangladesh, ETEC has been isolated from surface water samples from ponds, rivers and lakes (Begum et al. 2005, 2007; Lothigius et al.…”