The Location Of Escherichia Coli In The Pig Intestine

SUMMARY The situation of enteropathogenic strains of Escherichia coli in the porcine intestine of naturally occurring and experimentally reproduced cases of E. coli diarrhoea was studied mainly by fluorescent staining techniques. Three different enteropathogenic strains were found on villi of the small intestine, but only small numbers of these bacteria were found on the colonic mucosa except when they were contiguous with the mass of bacteria in the lumen. A non-entero-pathogenic strain of E. coli was found on villi of the small intestine in small numbers. Occasional Gram-positive bacilli were observed on a few villi in the intestines of two healthy piglets. Coliform attachment to villi was found to be most marked when diarrhoea was clinically well established, but such attachment was also sometimes observed during the early clinical stages of diarrhoea. It is therefore considered that adhesion of E. coli to small-intestinal villi is a significant lesion of porcine diarrhoea associated with enteropathogenic strains of E. coli.