Immunological nonidentity of heat-labile enterotoxins from human and porcine enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli

Abstract

The Ouchterlony double-gel diffusion test demonstrated that heat-labile enterotoxin (LT) from human strains of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli was antigenically related but not identical to that from porcine E. coli. All human strains examined produced immunologically identical LTs, and all porcine strains examined produced immunologically identical LTs. The Biken test (modified Elek test), developed for detection of E. coli LT (Honda et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 13: 1-5, 1981), was useful for confirmation of these results.