Coming on the heels of an April 2011 E. coli O111 outbreak in Japan that killed four and sickened 100 people, the recent E. coli O104:H4 killed more than three dozen and seriously sickened hundreds of people, mostly in Germany. E. coli O111 is a non-STEC (shiga toxin E. coli) and O104:H4 (a non-O157:H7, but a STEC bacterium). There are rapid tests available, for example, for the non-O157 verocytotoxin-producing E. coli (VTEC) serotypes (O26, O91, O103, O111, O128 and O145), but standard detection methods for O157 won’t detect these serotypes (see above story). Therefore, more than one test is required for testing both STEC and non-STEC types.
Assays for E. coli O104:H4 may not be as widely available, primarily because until now, it was not an issue in the US. Ion sequencing equipment, based on semiconductors rather than optics, can provide relatively quick identification of O104:H4 and, according to Life Technologies website, represents an under-$50,000 investment. Scientists leveraged the company’s Ion PGM Sequencer to get answers for the German E. coli outbreak in two hours, according to Life Technologies.