The development of a new qRT-PCR Method to accurately identify the emerging Foodborne Pathogen E. albertii

Escherichia albertii is an emerging zoonotic foodborne pathogen. The clinical significance of this bacterium has increasingly been recognized worldwide. However, a diagnostic method has not yet been established, and its clinical manifestations are not fully understood. An article published in Heliyon by scientists from Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan (Awasthi et al.2024) showed that an Eacdt gene-based quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) is 100% specific and sensitive when tested with 39 E. albertii and 36 non-E. albertii strains, respectively. The detection limit of the real-time PCR was 10 CFU and 1 pg of genomic DNA per PCR tube. When E. albertii was spiked with 4 × 100–106 CFU per mL in a healthy person's stool, the detection limit was 4.0 × 103 and 4.0 CFU per mL before and after enrichment culture, respectively. Moreover, the qRT-PCR detected E. albertii in five children out of 246 (2%) but none from 142 adults suffering from gastroenteritis. All five E. albertii strains isolated carried eae and paa genes. However, only one strain harbored stx2f genes. Long-term shedding of stx2f gene-positive E. albertii in a child stool could be detected because of the qRT-PCR developed in this study, which might have been missed if only conventional PCR and culture methods were employed. Furthermore, E. albertii isolated from siblings with diarrhea showed clonality by PFGE analysis. Taken together, these data suggest that the Eacdt gene-based qRT-PCR developed for detecting E. albertii is useful and will assist in determining the real burden and clinical manifestation of E. albertii infections. @ https://www.cell.com/heliyon/fulltext/S2405-8440(24)06073-0