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E. coli strains: UPEC, STEC, ETEC and EPEC

Published on September 30, 2025   16 min

A selection of talks on Infectious Diseases

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0:00
Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Sarah Fouch. Welcome to this short recording where we will be considering some important strains of E. coli, the clinical conditions they are associated with, and the virulence factors that they produce to make them successful pathogens.
0:21
Before we work through the different strains of E. coli, it's important to provide some definitions of the abbreviations provided in the title slide. Within this recording, we will be considering four strains of E. coli: and they are UPEC or uropathogenic E. coli; STEC or Shiga toxin producing E. coli; ETEC or enterotoxogenic E. coli, and EPEC, or enteropathogenic E. coli.
1:03
Let's consider UPEC or uropathogenic E. coli first. This species of E. coli is the leading cause of urinary tract infections, particularly in female patients, accounting for up to 80-90% of community acquired infections. Unfortunately, this strain of E. coli can also cause hospital acquired infections, mostly associated with the formation of biofilms on urinary catheters. When we consider how many hospitalised patients are catheterised, either for the short term or for longer, this can affect many individuals. If a patient does not seek treatment or receives inappropriate treatment for urinary tract infection, the complications can be serious and include urosepsis. This happens when the bacteria ascend to the kidney and cause pyelonephritis, and then have access to the bloodstream and cause septicaemia. Symptoms of a urinary tract infection include dysuria, which is pain when urinating. Frequency, meaning you need to go more often. Urgency, meaning when you need to go, you really need to go, haematuria, which is blood in the urine, and suprapubic pain, which is lower abdominal pain. If the kidney is involved, which is referred to as pyelonephritis, the patient may also experience pyrexia so a temperature, and loin pain, which is associated with back pain, and that's where the kidneys are located. Let's consider some of

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