The Conundrum of Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 Persistence: Evidence for Locally Persistent Lineages

Gillian A.M. Tarr; William Finical; Joshua M. Rounds; Anna Panek; Kirk Smith

doi:10.1093/infdis/jiag223

The Conundrum of Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 Persistence: Evidence for Locally Persistent Lineages

Gillian A.M. Tarr
, William Finical
, Joshua M. Rounds
, Anna Panek
, Kirk Smith

Environmental Health Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Evidence suggests that Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) strains do not persist at the farm level. We hypothesized that ecosystem-level STEC persistence occurs and contributes significantly to disease burden. We tested this by identifying locally persistent lineages (LPLs) of STEC O157:H7 in Minnesota. We identified 15 distinct LPLs, which were associated with 35.3% of reported cases in Minnesota and persisted for 1.3–8.6 years. Locally persistent lineages were associated with multiple outbreaks with Minnesota sources and no multi-state outbreaks, and LPL cases were spatially clustered. Our findings show long-term persistence in defined geographic areas, suggesting the importance of ecosystem-level persistence.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	e311-e315
Journal	Journal of Infectious Diseases
Volume	234
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiag223
State	Published - Aug 15 2026

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact [email protected] for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact [email protected].

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

Shiga toxin-producingEscherichia coli
disease ecology
genomic epidemiology
persistence
phylogenetics

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10.1093/infdis/jiag223

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title = "The Conundrum of Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 Persistence: Evidence for Locally Persistent Lineages",

abstract = "Evidence suggests that Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) strains do not persist at the farm level. We hypothesized that ecosystem-level STEC persistence occurs and contributes significantly to disease burden. We tested this by identifying locally persistent lineages (LPLs) of STEC O157:H7 in Minnesota. We identified 15 distinct LPLs, which were associated with 35.3\% of reported cases in Minnesota and persisted for 1.3{\textendash}8.6 years. Locally persistent lineages were associated with multiple outbreaks with Minnesota sources and no multi-state outbreaks, and LPL cases were spatially clustered. Our findings show long-term persistence in defined geographic areas, suggesting the importance of ecosystem-level persistence.",

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note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact [email protected] for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site{\textemdash}for further information please contact [email protected].",

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N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact [email protected] for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact [email protected].

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The Conundrum of Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 Persistence: Evidence for Locally Persistent Lineages

Abstract

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Keywords

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