STEC Center
The Thomas S. Whittam Shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STEC) Center was originally created by the late Tom Whittam to facilitate research on (STEC) and close relatives by providing a standard reference collection of well-characterized strains and on-line accessible databases. Currently, the Center does the following:
- Serves as a repository for the deposition of E. coli and other foodborne pathogens from human patients, animal reservoirs, and environments. The collection has over 16,000 bacterial strains.
- Distributes sets of strains for use by investigators. See the reference strains below for a list of the most commonly requested strains.
- Characterizes subsets of STEC using genetic markers of clonal identity and virulence genes (e.g., stx, eae).
The following STEC reference sets are available upon request:
Escherichia coli reference (ECOR) set
Diarrheagenic E. coli (DEC) set
These reference sets represent the most commonly requested strains in the STEC Center collection; however, additional strains are available upon request. Strain requests can be sent to Shannon Manning at stec@cvm.msu.edu
In your request, please indicate which traits are of interest (e.g., stx profile, eae, O-type, etc.) and the number of strains you would like to receive.
For non-profit organizations, the cost is $7.00/ strain, while for-profit organizations pay $120/strain plus shipping charges. Please note that an MTA is required to be completed prior to shipment and that STEC cannot be exported outside the U.S.
Note: This site replaces the former shigatox.net (shigatox.net/new/) site