In the present study, 12 serogroups and 19 serotypes were identified. The majority of these serotypes have been isolated from swine, sheep, cattle, food, and water in other countries [24, 31–36]. The most prevalent serotype is O20:H30/[H30], which was also reported in cattle and sheep in different countries [31, 32]. Six serotypes (O100:H20/[H20], O143:H38/[H38], O87:H10, O172:H30/[H30], O159:H16, O9:H30/[H30]) were rarely found in STEC isolates isolated from swine and other ruminants, implying that these serotypes may be restricted to the swine populations in these regions and their environments.

Serotypes O86:H11, O20:NM, O100:NM, O9:NM, O172:NM and O114:NM have previously been described among STEC isolated from human patients [37–42]. Serotype O157:H7, which is common serotype causing human disease in some countries, was not detected. A possible reason for no isolation of O157:H7 might be the method selleck chemicals llc used. Isolation of O157 STEC often requires more targeted methods, such as the use of O157 immunomagnetic beads to capture the bacteria from enrichment broth and then culture on selective media [43].

We previously used immunomagnatic separation to successfully isolate O157 STEC from pigs, although that was in an outbreak setting and was in a different geographic region [44]. In this study we used CHROMagar™ ECC only and selleckchem didn’t specifically target O157 STEC. CHROMagar™ ECC has been used by others for isolation of STEC from pigs [45]. However, that study did not isolate O157 STEC either. Therefore, the CHROMagar™ ECC may not be an ideal media for O157 STEC isolation. We used sorbitol-MacConkey agar as a quick method to pick potential O157 colonies since sorbitol fermentation is a traditional feature for differentiating O157:H7 which is sorbitol-negative although there are sorbitol-positive O157 STEC [46]. In this study, a fair proportion (43%) of non-O157 STEC is actually sorbitol-negative. Therefore sorbitol fermentation is not a good indicator

for O157:H7. We analyzed multiple colonies from 21 samples to determine diversity within a sample (Figure 2). Two samples contained Inositol monophosphatase 1 isolates with identical properties, suggesting they are the same strain, while the majority of the samples contain isolates belonging to the same sequence type but differing by one or more of the phenotypic or genetic properties tested, indicating that they are variants of the same clone. The most common variations are non-expression of the H antigen, variation of Selleck C188-9 antibiotic resistance and/or variation in PFGE patterns. However 4 samples contained 2 different STs. Samples S15, S41, S49 and S50 all contain the prevalent ST993 and an additional ST, being ST10, ST88, ST710 and ST540 respectively, suggesting 2 different clones infecting the same pig.