Food borne diseases are a threat to public health worldwide and contribute substantially to global morbidity and mortality rates worldwide. The deleterious impact of these diseases on human health, concurrent with the associated socioeconomic loses has led to an increased demand for the production of safe food globally. The role of poultry products as zoonotic reservoir of enteropathogenic E.coli to humans was investigated in the current study. A total of 100 samples of various chicken products were randomly collected from different supermarkets at Alexandria province including; fresh chicken boneless cuts (fillet), burger (raw product), luncheon (processed ready to eat product) and nuggets (frozen breaded half cooked chicken product) (25 each). Samples were subjected to bacteriological examination for isolation and identification of enteropathognic E. coli. In addition, molecular approach using PCR assay was carried out for simultaneous detection of four virulence markers in the recovered isolates and also, antibiogram pattern of isolates was determined. The recorded results showed that the highest rate of isolation of E. coli was detected in the examined samples of fillet (24%) followed by burger (12%) then luncheon (8%) while the examined samples of nuggets were found to be negative for presence of E. coli with significant statistical association between the rates of isolation and different poultry products. Serotyping of the recovered E. coli isolates (n=11) from cleared the presence of several serotypes including; O119:H6 (1 isolate) (EPEC), O111:H2 (3 isolates) (EHEC), O55:H7 (2 isolate) (EPEC), O128:H2 (4 isolates) (ETEC) and O157:H7 (1 isolate) (EHEC). Antimicrobial susceptibility of E. coli strains to ten antimicrobial agents was performed. It was found 81.8 % of tested isolates were sensitive to Amikacin, 54.5% were sensitive to Ampicillin, 45.5% were sensitive to Cefotaxim, 81.8% were sensitive to Ciprofloxacin, 90.9% were sensitive to Doxycycline, 81.8% were sensitive to Erythromycin, 72.7% were sensitive to Kanamycin, 27.3% were sensitive to Penicillin G, 36.4% were sensitive to Sulphamethoxazol and 9.1% were sensitive to Streptomycin. Finally, multiplex PCR was employed successfully for molecular characterization of 4 virulence genes in the recovered E. coli isolates from the examined chicken products including; of stx1, stx2, eaeA and hylA genes. Based on the recorded results, it was found that retailed chicken products constitute a health hazard to human although the rate of isolation of enteropathogenic E. coli was relatively low.
Key words: E. coli, poultry products, Molecular characterization, antibiogram pattern,
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