• 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 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