Aborto bovino por Escherichia coli

Abstract

The Central-West region of Brazil has a cattle herd of 70 million heads, accounting for 36% of the national concentration. The productivity of a herd is closely related to animal health. Escherichia coli stands out as one of the main pathogenic agents involved in neonatal diseases. Therefore, this case report aims to describe a case of bovine abortion caused by Escherichia coli O8H9 from a cow with a clinical history and diarrhea. A female aborted bovine fetus, seven months gestational age, of Holstein breed, from a dairy farm, was subjected to necropsy. Macroscopically, the hepatic lymph nodes were enlarged. Microscopically, the main alteration was observed in the lung, characterized by moderate multifocal suppurative bronchopneumonia with intralesional gram-negative bacterial rods. Complementary microbiological tests of lung and abomasum content samples revealed the growth of E. coli. Sequencing revealed it to be an Escherichia coli O8H9 serotype, associated with the virulence gene fimH and the B1 phylogenetic group. This report describes a case of bacterial abortion caused by E. coli and concludes that multidisciplinary studies, including pathological analysis of fetal tissue, are necessary to investigate the link between bovine abortion and E. coli.