Although most E. coli are harmless commensals of the human and animal intestine, certain specific, highly-adapted E. coli strains are capable of causing a variety of different diseases. Infections due to pathogenic E. coli may be
Although most E. coli are harmless commensals of the human and animal intestine, certain specific, highly-adapted E. coli strains are capable of causing a variety of different diseases. Infections due to pathogenic E. coli may be limited to colonization of a mucosal surface or can disseminate throughout the body and have been implicated in urinary tract infection, sepsis/meningitis and gastrointestinal infections (Nataro & Kaper, 1998). One of the most notable features of E. coli is broad diversity of disease-causing genotypes.
The diseases can encompass different symptoms and gastrointestinal tract 345 pathologies, but there are also diseases at extraintestinal sites. These different genotypes and their disease-causing abilities lead to categories of E. coli often referred to as pathotypes. There are seven intestinal and two extraintestinal pathotypes currently recognized. (Brüssow et al.,20