• Consulting service to specific questions concerning clinical questions / problems of EHEC-infections and additional diagnostic tests
• Information about obligatory notifications and prevention
• Information about sampling and transportation
• Isolation and cultivation of EHEC and other intestinal pathogenic E. coli (EAEC, ETEC, EIEC) from stool specimens, cultures, swabs etc. using immunomagnetic separation and colony immunoblot (only EHEC), PCR targeting different toxins and other virulence determinants
• Specific detection of sorbitol-fermenting EHEC O157:H- (e.g., by sfpA-PCR)
• Detection of Shiga toxins (Stx) in stool and in isolates using Cytotoxicity assays and Stx-ELISA
• Detection of serum antibodies (IgM and IgG) against lipopolysaccharides of EHEC O157
• Subtyping of EHEC:
• Specific detection and subtyping from Shiga toxin-encoding genes
• Quantification of the transcription of Stx-genes by Real-time PCR
• Typing of further virulence genes (e.g. eae, cdt)
• Multilocus sequence typing (MLST)
• Partial gnd sequencing for the detection of the O-antigen
• Whole genome sequencing for deeper characterizations and SNP detection
• Strain collection of human and environmental EHEC isolates
• Development of specific and sensitive detection methods for EHEC
• Development of methods for differentiation of strains and virulence markers