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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #127251
Title: MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS OF SHIGA-TOXIGENIC ESCHERICHIA COLI (STEC) O157 ISOLATION FROM THE MOUTH, MULTIPLE HIDE SURFACES, AND THE FECES OF FINISHEDBEEF FEEDLOT CATTLE

Author
item Keen, James
item ELDER, ROBERT - FORMER ARS EMPLOYEE

Submitted to: Research Workers in Animal Diseases Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/21/2001
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: We sampled the oral cavity (mouth), five hide surfaces (lumbar flank, ventral neck, ventral midline (ventrum), dorsal thoracic midline (back), and distal left rear leg (hock), and rectal feces from 139 beef feedlot cattle in four non-adjacent pens of the same feedlot (973 total samples). All samples were cultured for the presence of STEC O157. Overall site- specific STEC O157 prevalence (in descending order) was: mouth, 74.8%; back, 73.4%; neck, 62.6%; feces, 60.4%; flank, 54.0%; ventrum, 51.1%, and hock, 41.0%. Only five cattle were STEC O157-negative at all seven sites, while 37 cattle were STEC O157-positive at all seven sites. We used multivariate analysis to (1) better understand the inter-relationships between STEC O157 culture results at each sampled site and (2) to simplify the data from its original seven dimensions by decreasing redundant information due to correlated data. The STEC O157 isolation data was subjected sequentially to two complementary forms of analysis: multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis. This analysis demonstrated that three sample sites captured most of the variation in the STEC O157 isolation data, such that culture results from the feces, the mouth, and the back detected 132 of 134 STEC O157-positive cattle.