Survival of Escherichia coli O157:H7 on Cattle Hides

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the time period that Escherichia coli O157:H7 survives on the hides of cattle. Extensive research has been conducted and is ongoing to identify and develop novel preharvest intervention strategies to reduce the presence of E. coli O157:H7 on live cattle and subsequent transfer to processed carcasses. If a reduction of E. coli O157:H7 levels in feces can be achieved through preharvest intervention, it is not known how long it would take for such reductions to be seen on the hide. In the study presented herein, three trials were conducted to follow E. coli O157:H7 hide prevalence over time. For each trial, 36 animals were housed in individual stanchions to minimize or prevent hide contamination events. Through prevalence determination and isolate genotyping with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, survival of E. coli O157:H7 on the hides of live cattle was determined to be short lived, with an approximate duration of 9 days or less. The results of this study suggest that any preharvest interventions that are to be administered at the end of the finishing period will achieve maximum effect in reducing E. coli O157:H7 levels on cattle hides if given 9 days before the cattle are presented for processing. However, it should be noted that interventions reducing pathogen shedding would also contribute to decreasing hide contamination through lowering the contamination load of the processing plant lairage environment, regardless of the time of application.

Isolation and Characterization of <i>Escherichia coli</i> from Animals, Humans, and Environment

“…In this type of water body, for example, a stream, 5-10, or more samples are collected across the vertical depth and width [3]. Samples from surfaces such as hide, table, knife, and the likes can be obtained by sweeping a buffered peptone water with premoistened swabs or sponge on the sampling surface in a Z-pattern [4]. The sponge or swabs that covers approximately 400-1000 cm 2 are then put in 100 ml of tryptic soya broth for further processing.…”

Evaluation of Animal Genetic and Physiological Factors That Affect the Prevalence of Escherichia coli O157 in Cattle

“…Despite the implementation of government regulations and development of process interventions, food recalls and human illness related to E. coli O157 remain concerns around the world. Reducing the prevalence of this pathogen in cattle at the pre-harvest level has been highlighted recently as a critical control point to decrease the number of E. coli O157 entering the food chain [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. Awareness of the risk factors that may increase the prevalence of E. coli O157 at the pre-harvest level can provide insights to develop intervention technologies to reduce its prevalence.…”

“…Cattle that excrete more than 10 4 colony forming unit (CFU)/g of cattle feces have been defined as super-shedders [9], [12]. The super-shedders are responsible for about 90% of the total number of bacteria in the cattle herd [9], [12] and raise the prevalence of cattle infected with this pathogen on farms, making them a high risk factor at the pre-harvest level [6], [7], [13]. However, colonization of this pathogen in cattle is usually asymptomatic due to the lack of Shiga toxin receptor, globotriaosylceramide (Gb3), in cattle endothelial cells [14] that prevents elimination of super-shedding cattle contaminated with this pathogen at farms.…”

The significance of clean and dirty animals for bacterial dynamics along the beef chain

“…Survival of E. coli outside the intestines depends on temperature, water activity, nutrition, pH, bacterial concentration, and competing microflora (Duffy et al, 2014). Arthur et al (2011) showed that STEC O157 on the hides of live cattle survived for up to nine days.…”