ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the infection and distribution situations of diarrheogenic Escherichia coli among food practi‐tioners in Changsha City and to understand the carrying status of its virulence genes .Methods Totally 258 food practitioners from 9 units of Changsha City were extracted as the research subjects .Diarrheogenic Escherichia coli was detected by adopting the real time fluorescence multiple PCR .Results The infection rate of diarrheogenic Escherichia coli was 15 .5% (40/258) ,in which EAEC accounted for 10 .9% (28/258) ,EPEC for 3 .1% (8/258) and EHEC for 1 .6% (4/258) respectively ,EIEC and ETEC were not found .Among 28 strains of EAEC ,26 strains carried uidA gene ,13 strains carried aggR+pic gene and 27 strains carried astA gene , the carrying rates were 92 .9% ,46 .4% and 96 .4% respectively ;eight strains of EPEC all carried eae and uidA genes ;among 4 strains of EHEC ,3 strains carried eae gene ,moreover all 4 strains carried stx1+ stx2 gene .Conclusion Establishing a mechanism for continuously monitoring diarrheogenic Escherichia coli and deeply studying its molecular epidemiologic theory not only provide the essential data for the supervisory departments formulating and evaluating the public health measures ,but also has an important significance for evaluating the food safety status ,which can effectively control infectious source and protect the people′s health .