Molecular Mapping of Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli Strains in Human, Animal and Water Samples in Okigwe, Imo State, Nigeria

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) are a leading cause of diarrhea among children globally. This study, carried out from May to June, 2025, applied molecular techniques to investigate the prevalence and antibiotics sensitivity profiles of EPEC in cow dung, human and water samples from Okigwe zone, Imo State, Nigeria. Out of the 50 samples collected in each case, E. coli was isolated from 12 cow dung samples (24.00%), 13 river water samples (26.00%) and 15 human faecal samples (30.00%). The phylogenetic tree revealed that the 16S rRNA sequence from some of the isolates produced an exact match during the megablast search for highly similar sequences from the NCBI non-redundant nucleotide (nr/nt) database. The highest percentage of sensitivity of isolates from the three samples was recorded with Ciprofloxacin. Only 41.7% for cow dung, 23.1% for river water and 26.7% for human diarrheal samples were the highest percentage of sensitive isolates recorded with Ciprofloxacin. The isolates were resistant to Augmentin, Ceftriaxone, Cefepime, Aztreonam and Meropenem. All the three studied β-lactamase resistance enzymes including CTX-M, TEM-1 and SHV-1 were expressed by the isolates. The prevalence of CTX-M and SHV-1 enzymes was highest in isolates from human diarrheal samples, with 38.5% and 23.1%, respectively. The prevalence of eae and bfpA genes of EPEC was highest in isolates from both river water and human diarrheal samples, which equally recorded 30.8% and 38.5% prevalence respectively. These results require immediate heightened to mitigate the spread of multidrug resistant EPEC through application of contaminated human and animal dungs.