6th Annual Judith Ramaley Celebration of Research and Creative Scholarship
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Poster #118 Rate of E. coli 0157:H7 in different types of manure Brian Warnke
Faculty Mentor: Nicole Aulik Escherichia coli is a natural inhabitant of the human and most mammalian’s lower intestinal tracts. Most E. coli strains are harmless or cause disease when displaced from the colon. However, several pathogenic strains have caused disease outbreaks and occasionally deaths. One particularly pathogenic strain is E. coli O157:H7. Most of the time, E. coli O157:H7 causes only mild symptoms that are easily overcome, but for the very young or the old (above 65) it can cause several complications including hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). Individuals are usually infected by eating undercooked ground beef, swimming in infected water, drinking unpasteurized milk or apple cider or eating contaminated vegetables. Vegetables and fruits usually get contaminated by cross-contamination with spread manure from livestock. In recent studies, only E. coli 0157:H7 has been found in cow manure. This study examines if other manures that are being spread on crops contain E. coli 0157:H7. We sampled pig, turkey, cow, and chicken from local farmers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The 0.25 grams of each sample was incubated in 7 mL of tryptic soy broth at 37 oC for 18 hours. Samples were plated on CHROMagar O157 and incubated 48 hours at 37 oC for the chromogenic identification of O157 positive colonies. There was E. coli 0157:H7 growth on the plates that received bovine and swine manure but little colony formation was observed on plates that received other manures. Our data indicate that E. coli O157:H7 is mostly found in bovine and swine manure and there is little risk of E. coli O157:H7 contamination in other manures. These findings might alter which kind of manure or if mixtures of manures should be used for the fertilization of crop fields.
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