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Verocytotoxin-Producing Escherichia coli in the Genomic Era: From Virulotyping to Pathogenomics

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Applied Genomics of Foodborne Pathogens

Part of the book series: Food Microbiology and Food Safety ((RESDEV))

Abstract

Verocytotoxin (VT)-producing Escherichia coli (VTEC) are emerging food-borne pathogens causing severe disease in humans. VTEC genomes are highly variable due to the presence of many mobile genetic elements harbouring virulence genes, which can be acquired or lost through horizontal gene transfer. Such an impressive variability hinders the possibility to define a clear-cut strategy to proactively identify the strains able to cause disease in humans among the wealth of putatively harmless VTEC circulating in the animal reservoir. The advent of high throughput sequencing technologies opened new opportunities for the characterization and typing of VTEC strains, witnessed by their massive use during the huge outbreak of haemolytic uremic syndrome caused by an Enteroaggregative VT-producing E. coli O104:H4 in Germany in 2011. This chapter discusses the Next Generation Sequencing technologies applied to the study of VTEC evolution and epidemiology, highlighting the main challenges affecting their present use and the opportunities offered by the genomic era for VTEC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Union Reference Laboratory for Escherichia coli, Department of Veterinary Public Health and Food Safety, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, viale Regina Elena 299, 00161, Rome, Italy

    Valeria Michelacci, Rosangela Tozzoli, Alfredo Caprioli & Stefano Morabito

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  1. Valeria Michelacci
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  2. Rosangela Tozzoli
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  3. Alfredo Caprioli
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  4. Stefano Morabito
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Correspondence to Valeria Michelacci .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Food Safety, University of Georgia, Griffin, Georgia, USA

    Xiangyu Deng

  2. Department of Animal and Food Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA

    Henk C. den Bakker

  3. National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Rene S. Hendriksen

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Michelacci, V., Tozzoli, R., Caprioli, A., Morabito, S. (2017). Verocytotoxin-Producing Escherichia coli in the Genomic Era: From Virulotyping to Pathogenomics. In: Deng, X., den Bakker, H., Hendriksen, R. (eds) Applied Genomics of Foodborne Pathogens. Food Microbiology and Food Safety(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43751-4_7

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