Prevalence and antimicrobial resistance pattern of Escherichia coli O157: H7 isolated from avian eggs

Escherichia coli (E. coli) is one of the most common intestinal pathogenic bacteria that cause various infections among men and animals. E. coli O157:H7 is one of the major serotypes which is placed in the group of Enterohemorrhagic E. coli or EHEC. The purpose of this study was searching for serotype O157:H7 in samples of domestic birds’ egg in the market by culture method and PCR molecular method and the antibiotic resistance of this bacterium was investigated. Totally, 87 samples of domestic poultry eggs (chicken, quail, pigeons, ostriches) three parts of shell, yolk and white (from each part a separate sample) were examined and after culturing steps, 8 samples were infected with this bacterium. Then, these 8 samples were tested with PCR strain and finally, 4 samples had O157: H7 strain genotype. Also after conducting antibiogram tests to determine the sensitivity toward different antibiotics, the most sensitivity of E.coli was belonged to antibiotics ciprofloxacin, ceftiroxone, enrofloxacin, enrofloxacin and nalidixic acid.