E. coli O157:H7 is the major serotype belonging to the strain
enterohemorrhagic E. coli. These strains have been found to
be important food-borne pathogens (Huerta-Urebi et al., 2016;
Kaneda et al., 2017 ).This type of E. coli can cause hemorrhagic
colitis and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) (Jeong et al., 2010;
De-Boer et al., 2015). E. coli O157:H7 is characterized by the
expression of shiga-like toxins even though it produces various
other virulence factors (Pianciola et al., 2016). Shiga toxins are
classified into two major groups, Stx1 and Stx2, which are
encoded on a prophage (Juma, 2010; Zhu et al., 2017). These
genes can be transferred horizontally to E. coli (Basu and Tumer,
2015; Lindsey et al., 2016), allowing transformation of shiga-like
toxin non-producing strains into shiga-like toxin-producing
strains. The aims of this study was to isolate and identify local
strains of E. coli O157:H7 which obtained from children with
acute and persistent diarrhea, to characterize the strains by
traditional phenotypic methods and specific biochemical tests and
assess the antimicrobial susceptibility of these strains to obtain
antibiotics resistance pattern.