5 research outputs found
Escherichia albertii in Wild and Domestic Birds
The isolates were similar to those that cause disease in humans.
Escherichia albertii
has been associated with diarrhea in humans but not with disease or infection in animals. However, in December 2004,
E. albertii
was found, by biochemical and genetic methods, to be the probable cause of death for redpoll finches (
Carduelis flammea
) in Alaska. Subsequent investigation found this organism in dead and subclinically infected birds of other species from North America and Australia. Isolates from dead finches in Scotland, previously identified as
Escherichia coli
O86:K61, also were shown to be
E. albertii
. Similar to the isolates from humans,
E. albertii
isolates from birds possessed intimin (
eae
) and cytolethal distending toxin (
cdtB
) genes but lacked Shiga toxin (s
tx
) genes. Genetic analysis of
eae
and
cdtB
sequences, multilocus sequence typing, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis patterns showed that the
E. albertii
strains from birds are heterogeneous but similar to isolates that cause disease in humans