Novel strains of typical enteropathogenic <i>Escherichia coli</i> (tEPEC) in <i>Pteropus</i> bats, including the first report of a phylogroup G tEPEC.

ABSTRACT: Typical enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (tEPEC) is an important cause of prolonged diarrhoea in human infants. Humans are considered the primary reservoir and the only natural host of human-associated tEPEC. Recently, bat-specific tEPEC lineages were consistently detected in an Australian fruit bat species (Pteropus poliocephalus; grey-headed flying fox), indicating that P. poliocephalus is also a natural tEPEC host. tEPEC are differentiated from other pathogenic E. coli by the presence of the bundle-forming pilus (bfp) operon. In this study, we characterize two additional bat-associated tEPEC strains, the first (FF593) from P. poliocephalus and the second (FF618) from another Australian Pteropus species, Pteropus conspicillatus (sp

SUBMITTER: McDougall FK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12452172 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature