TDK conference 2020

Escherichia coli is a widely occurring Gram negative bacterium which, apart from being part of the normal gut flora, is known as a cause of many different diseases. We distinguish extraintestinal and intestinal E. coli strains based on the location and the type of the lesion caused. The intestinal E. colis can be divided into two groups: typical (tEPEC), which possess the ability to form pilus and atypical (aEPEC), which do not possess this ability. The main host of tEPEC are humans, animals can only carry them temporarily, and nowadays their occurrence in diarrheal outbreaks are uncommon. Instead, aEPEC strains are more frequently isolated from diarrheal cases not only in the developing, but in the developed world as well. These strains are present in animals (cattle, pigs, sheep, chicken, turkeys, dogs, cats) and thus can be a source of infection for humans, and they can also affect the outcome of diarrheal diseases in animals. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the E. coli pathotypes found in turkey, goose and duck stocks in Hungary.

Altogether 243 samples were collected from poultry slaughterhouses (n=2) in Hungary and the laboratory of NÉBIH ÁDI in Budapest, from different age groups and different origins. Thus, we isolated E. colis from caeca of geese (n=101), ducks (n=87) and turkeys (n=55) with classic methods of microbiology. The pathotypes were identified based on their virulence genes using PCR. Antibiotic resistance of the aEPEC strains was examined by disk diffusion method.

Out of the 243 E. colis, we isolated 2 goose and 2 turkey aEPEC strains. These were from stuffed geese and 4-week-old broiler turkeys. These strains proved to be multidrug resistant.

As a result, we can claim to have detected aEPEC in geese for the first time. As for the turkeys, our findings are not novel and are in correlation with those of previous studies. Based on our results and data collected from literature, we can state that aEPEC is common in poultry. Its presence and frequency decreases with age, however, stressors, like crammed housing conditions of the animals and stuffing can possibly increase the chance of the presence of pathogen strains in the intestinal content.