Proliferative enterocolitis associated with dual infection with enteropathogenic Escherichia coli and Lawsonia intracellularis in rabbits.

Autor: Schauer DB; Division of Comparative Medicine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, USA. schauer@mit.edu, McCathey SN, Daft BM, Jha SS, Tatterson LE, Taylor NS, Fox JG
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of clinical microbiology [J Clin Microbiol] 1998 Jun; Vol. 36 (6), pp. 1700-3.
DOI: 10.1128/JCM.36.6.1700-1703.1998
Abstrakt: Both enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) and an obligate intracellular bacterium, previously referred to as an intracellular Campylobacter-like organism and now designated Lawsonia intracellularis, have been reported as causes of enterocolitis in rabbits. An outbreak of enterocolitis in a group of rabbits, characterized by an unusually high rate of mortality, was found to be associated with dual infection with EPEC and L. intracellularis. The EPEC strain was found to have eaeA gene homology but was negative for afrA homology. The absence of the afrA gene, which encodes the structural subunit for the AF/R1 pilus, indicates that this rabbit EPEC strain is distinct from the prototypic RDEC-1 strain. This finding suggests that rabbit EPEC strains widely reported in Western Europe, which lack AF/R1 pili, are also present in rabbits in the United States. Dual infection with these two pathogens in rabbits has not been previously reported and may have contributed to the unusually high mortality observed in this outbreak.
Databáze: MEDLINE