WSU gets federal grant to target genetics of E. coli in cattle

Washington Ag Today March 1, 2010 Washington State University professor of veterinary microbiology Tom Besser has received a one-million dollar grant from the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative to work on E. coli 0157:H7 in cattle. Besser says the big purpose is to find interventions that cattle producers can use to reduce the number of animals infected with or shedding E. coli.

Besser: “To get there the lead we are following is to follow up on a clue we have identified that about half the E. coli 0157:H7 isolates that we find in cattle manure are strains that don‘t show up in human infections at all. And that is surprising to us because they seem to have all the normal virulence factors that we think that are associated with causing human disease. So what we are going to do is focus on the other half, the half that does cause human disease.”

Besser says it may be that some interventions for cattle producers aren’t that effective on the strains that cause most human infections. Some that were thought not to be that effective might be. A vaccine might reduce 0157 by half but is that half the E. coli strain most harmful to humans? By developing genetic markers and taking a new look at practices and strategies Besser hopes to find the answers.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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