Gene toxin patterns of Escherichia coli isolated from diseased and healthy piglets

DNA probes specific for genes coding for the heat stable enterotoxins (ST-I and ST-II), the heat labile enterotoxins (LT-I and LT-II), Shiga like cytotoxins and for the enterohemorrhagic factor (EHF), were used to examined 150 fecal Escherichia coli isolates from both diarrheic and healthy piglets. Thirty seven percent of the isolates hybridized with the LT-I probe, seventy one of them did so with the LT-II probe, while seventy six percent of the isolates possessed genes coding for the heat stable enterotoxins. No SLT-I positive hybridization was found and four percent of the isolates possessed SLT-II genes.