Nonspecificity of Primers for Escherichia albertii Detection

Abstract

It is important for public health to identify foods that are potential sources of bacterial infections such as food poisoning. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is often used to detect pathogens that are poorly defined by biochemical characteristics (1). Escherichia albertii is a newly-described enteropathogen of humans and birds (2,3). This bacterium occasionally causes outbreaks of gastroenteritis in humans following ingestion of contaminated foods (4). In this study, we used PCR to identify foods that may be sources of E. albertii infection. However, we found that the species-specific primers for E. albertii detection (5) also detected genes from bacterial species other than E. albertii.