I have a microbiology Question please HELP ME :(

[NubianPrincess]

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I am trying to figure out what would be the public health significance of differentiating b/w E. coli and E. aerogenes. Both seem to be an indication of fecal contamination, but why is it important to know the difference?






🙁

 

[NE_Cornhusker1]

Is E. aerogenes is meant to Enterobacter aerogenes or Escherichia aerogenes? Peace.

 

[NubianPrincess]

Escherichia Coli and Enterobacter Aerogenes

 

[NE_Cornhusker1]

I just PM'ed ya. Check it out.

 

[NE_Cornhusker1]

E.coli is positive for the Indole test, E. aerogenes is negative.

E.coli can break down tryptophan, E. aerogenes can't.

I don't know how this could possibly relate to public health though. Sorry.

 

[DALABROKA]

Originally posted by NubianPrincess
I am trying to figure out what would be the public health significance of differentiating b/w E. coli and E. aerogenes. Both seem to be an indication of fecal contamination, but why is it important to know the difference?🙁

If I remember correctly, E. coli is a common flora for most warm blooded mammals, whereas Enterobacter aerogenes is more specific to humans. So, the prescence of E. aerogenes is indicative of human fecal contamination.

Cheers,
DALA

 

[Jalby]

And to think. I just finished microbiology and we didn't even cover E aerogenes. Only covered the important stuff.

 

[Adcadet]

I don't know anything about the two species you mentioned, but I think I can make a few comments on this one:

Identifying the agent is often a critical step in many public health campaigns/outbreak situations. If you know the agent, you often know a lot. As somebody mentioned, if one species is usually from animal feces and the other is usually from human feces, and you have a big clue about the source of contamination. You will often also have an idea about things such as incubation time, probable case fatality rate, symptomology, etc etc. Also, if you know the agent, you can then simplify the types/numbers of diagnostic tests you need to run to determine if a sample is contaminated. Furthermore, you can help guide medical care - if an ER doc knows that it is highly likely that a sick person has been exposed to a particular pathogen, this can help guide early treatment. If you know the agent is almost universally self limiting in the healthy, and you avoid costly interventions and reassure people.