A stool culture can be done to check for disease-causing E.coli.

Hi everyone,

Niklas Thilo is absolutely right. Many thanks for the full text from IJMM.

I suggest you to culture stool on Macconkey and EMB agar as well as SS agar to detect all diarrheas infection pathogens

This question relies on the dubious assumption that the clinical picture depends on the cause and not the result.  By analogy, there might be some differences in the symptomatology of broken legs related to the cause of those accidents, but it is unlikely to be helpful to go down that road.

Streak stool specimen on MacConkey's agar and test lactose positive colonies by slide

agglutination tests with antisera against enterotoxic serotypes of E. coli.

Dear,

Based on clinical judgement alone, it is almost impossible to tell that the cause of diarrhea is E. coli. One might make an educated guess about pathogen in case of dysentry vs. non dysentry.

In lab, MacConkey plate is used to find Gram negative bacteria and also thus E.coli. Colonies can be than identified, for example using MALDI. Special attention can be paid on Shiga toxin producing E. coli. O157 E. coli can be detected using sorbitol McConkey agar. Other than O157 Shiga toxin producing E. coli, can be detected using immunoassay rapid test such as produced by Meridian biosciences.

Recent, modern techniques using multiplex PCR technique can detect several types of intestinal bacteria (such as Biofire). A recent publication in CMI and also our findings (unpublished) show that Enteropathogenic E. coli are a common finding or found together with other pathogens that rise the question on their pathogenic significance.

Hope this helps.

Very short question and it has an equally short precise answer i.e FOLLOW KOCH'S POSTULATE.

you can detect virulence factor phenotypically and molecular to seperate diarrhea caused by E.coli and not caused by another cause.

Simply try isolating E. coli on MacConkey's medium. It would be more than an indication of involvement of the organism. 

Can isolate E.coli on EMB and Identification for O157 on sorbitol macConky agar and you required for clinical assessment if any history of diarrhea or age of patients if child or old or travel history

If you do get E.coli either on McConkey's medium or on EMB or even on Endo's agar, you can use phage typing and pinpoint the source. Some time it may happen that you might get the organism but it may not match serologically, so be careful before you jump to any conclusion.

you can culture the stool on MacConkey's agar , identify E.coli by BR. followed by serotyping to distinguish different E coli serotypes. or culture from the start on sorbitol macConky agar if E coli O157 was suggested.

Using multiplex PCR

I think it is very difficult to differeniate clinically E.coli diarrhea from that caused by other agents.However,in the lab after isolation of E coli from stool there are many Known laboratory methods confirm that the causal is E.coli (strain associated with diarrhea) of those

1- demonstration of toxin e.g Biken test to detect Labile toxin(L.T)

2-Animal pathogencity

3- serology serotypes . certain serotypes Known to cause diarrhea

4- virulence factor may be detected by molecular methods

Best Regards

Diarrhea caused by E. coli cannot be differentiated from the others only by clinical symptoms. It is necessary to carry out a stool test. This simple routine checkup will allow the isolation and identification of main enteropathogenic, including E. coli. It is necessary to perform the sorotipagem to differentiate pathogenic strains of saprophytic. Other methods may also be used, in accordance with the technical conditions of the laboratory.