Isolation and determining some biological characteristics of Escherichia coli caused diarrhea in rabbits in Phu Vang district, Thua Thien - Hue province

Abstract

A total of 250 rabbit fecal samples collected from the rabbit households and farms in Phu Vang district, Thua Thien - Hue province was used to isolate and determine the biological characteristics of E. coli. The studied results showed that the infection rate of domestic rabbits with E. coli was the highest (92.00%) in the age groups at 31-45 days old and the lowest infection rate of rabbits (30.00%) was in the age group over 60 days old; 100% of the isolates could move, having reaction
to create indol, MR (positive); 100% of the isolates were able to ferment glucose and lactose. The morphological and chemical properties of the E. coli isolates were similar to E. coli and generally fitted the typical E. coli characteristics. The isolated E. coli strain were found to belong to 7 serotypes:
O103, O157, O158, O169, O44, O125, O153 and susceptible to amoxicillin, amikacin, cefuroxime (95.4%); colistin, streptomycin (86.3%) whilst resistant to doxycycline (90.91%) and bactrim (95.5%). Using PCR technique to check for the toxic genes of the isolated E. coli strains, as a result there were 7 strains carried the toxic genes, of which 4/7 E. coli strains carried the eaeA, tsh genes (57.14%), 2/7 strains carried the stx2 gene (28.57%), 1/7 strains carried the stx1 gene (14.28%).