Genetic diversity of Escherichia coli isolated from ducks and the environment using enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus.

Escherichia coli are mostly free living bacteria that harbour the gastrointestinal tract of poultry. Howbeit, pathogenic Escherichia coli are very important foodborne pathogens that can cause severe complications, illnesses and deaths in humans. The objective of this study was to determine the genetic diversity or relatedness of 62 Escherichia coli strains isolated from ducks and the environment using Enterobacterial Repetitive Intergenic Consensus (ERIC). The analysis of the Escherichia coli strains by ERIC produced DNA bands of different sizes for differentiation purposes and cluster analysis at a coefficient of 0.85 grouped the strains into different clusters and singletons. At this coefficient the Escherichia coli strains were grouped into thirteen clusters and eleven singletons with discriminatory index (D value) of 0.946. The ERIC PCR adapted in this study showed to be a useful genotyping tool for determining the genetic relatedness of the duck Escherichia coli strains. Comparison of the genetic relatedness among foodborne pathogens is important for foodborne diseases outbreak investigations.