Cattle Can Be a Reservoir of Sorbitol-Fermenting Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli O157:H(−) Strains and a Source of Human Diseases

Using the immunomagnetic separation procedure, we isolated sorbitol-fermenting (SF) Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H(−) strains from two patients, one with hemolytic-uremic syndrome and the other with diarrhea, and from a dairy cow epidemiologically associated with the patients. The phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of all isolates were identical or closely related. Moreover, the bovine isolate showed a clonal relatedness to SF STEC O157:H(−) strains isolated from patients in Germany and the Czech Republic from 1988 to 1998. This is the first evidence that cattle can be a reservoir of SF STEC O157:H(−) and a source of human diseases.