Methods for Rapidly and Accurately Detecting Pathogenic Escherichia coli

There is a continuous need for improved accuracy and rapidity for\ud detection methods applicable to foodborne pathogens; especially non-O157\ud Escherichia coli. Many E. coli, such as E. coli O157, produce Shiga toxin (STEC)\ud and are associated with several human foodborne illnesses that cause severe\ud diarrheal diseases, such as hemorrhagic colitis (HC) and hemolytic-uremic\ud syndrome (HUS). Methods commonly used to detect foodborne pathogens\ud employed by various food safety agencies include sample enrichment,\ud biochemical assays, real-time PCR (q-PCR), Pulse-field gel electrophoresis\ud (PFGE), plate analyses, and agglutination testing. One of the objectives of\ud this thesis research is to determine the feasibility and reliability for use of using\ud Immunomagnetic Separation (IMS) System, Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR)\ud Spectroscopy, and/or repetitive-PCR (rep-PCR) using the DiversiLab??? system\ud as effective and efficient methods for identification of pathogenic strains of E. coli.\ud This thesis research tests some of the same pathogenic E. coli strains across all\ud of the aforementioned methods, and each of these methods has shown to be\ud highly specific and accurate in detecting the various pathogenic E. coli used