The rise in foodborne-related outbreaks of non O157 shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STECs) emphasizes the importance of developing improved methods to rapidly detect and characterize STECs. The major s
aSequence numbers correspond to GenBank accession No. AJ239004. bPolymorphisms present in an alternative serotype 8 sequence (accession No. CR931644) were ignored. cResidue numbers correspond to amino