Bacteriological studies on Escherichia coli infection in rabbits

Abstract EN

A total number of 125 diseased rabbits collected from different farms in Port said Governorate during the period from January 2016 till March 2017 showing clinical signs of colisepticaemia ,with average age of 1-2 month were examined, 625 collected samples from liver, Intestine ,spleen, kidney and Heart blood (30.4 %,29 %,8.7 %,17.4 % and14.5 %) were positive for E.coli respectively.

These isolates were further characterized by polymerase chain reaction.

E.coli was isolated in 525 of the 625samples (84 %).

The isolated E.coli strain were found to belong to O stereotypes in order of frequency O 153, O 125, O 27,O158 and Untypable (28 %,16 %,24 %,12 % and 20) isolates respectively.

Based on PCR, All examined E.coli were positive100 %( 5/5) for phoA virulence gene, while 60 %( 3/5) of the tested E.coli isolates were positive to eaeA gene while 20 %( 1/5) of the tested E.coli isolates were positive to Tsh gene,while all tested isolates gave negative electrophoresis of Shiga-Like Toxin gene (stx1 and stx2).