Investigating the adherence factors of Escherichia coli at the bovine recto-anal junction.

ABSTRACT: Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are major foodborne pathogens that result in thousands of hospitalizations each year in the United States. Cattle, the natural reservoir, harbor STEC asymptomatically at the recto-anal junction (RAJ). The molecular mechanisms that allow STEC and non-STEC E. coli to adhere to the RAJ are not fully understood, in part because most adherence studies utilize human cell culture models. To identify a set of bovine-specific E. coli adherence factors, we used the primary RAJ squamous epithelial (RSE) cell-adherence assay to coculture RSE cells from healthy Holstein cattle with diverse E. coli strains from bovine and nonbovine sources. We hypothesized that a comparative genomic analysis of the strains would reveal fact

SUBMITTER: Nawrocki EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11540155 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature