‘Atypical’ is not a term you would expect to describe pathogenic E. coli. In this case, ‘atypical’ refers to E. coli that are missing certain – you guessed it – typical pathogenic E. coli genes. While different, both E. coli types share the locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE) – a collection of pathogenic genes – also known as a pathogenicity island. We’ll discuss more about atypical traits as we look at a brand new paper from Kathryn Holt’s group on atypical pathogenic E. coli LEE pathogenicity island variants. Holt’s team compares LEEs across ~200 atypical isolates collected around the world. Through their data, they trace the bacteria’s evolution and come to some fascinating and unexpected conclusions.

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