Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are an important cause of foodborne illness. They are originated from the digestive tract of the ruminants and can contaminate certain food. Once ingested, they can be responsible for a variety of clinical outcomes. To date, most authors have focused their work on the behavior of E. coli O157:H7 during cheese manufacturing: little is known about the behavior of non-O157:H7 STEC. Furthermore, the presence of STEC strains has been found in raw milk cheeses but dairy products remain less implicated in outbreaks than meat. Consequently, we chose to study the behavior of O157:H7 and non-O157:H7 STEC strains during the manufacturing of 5 different cheese technologies. Then, secondly, it appeared interesting to evaluate the survival of STEC isolated from cheeses during artificial digestion. Our results showed that certain technologies are favorable to the growth of the STEC. Only a long ripening step (>60 days) could then allow a reduction of the STEC rate. In contrast, the cooking step of the curd or the long coagulation of certain technologies inhibited their growth. Our results also showed that the growth and the survival of the E. coli O157:H7 strains were lower than those of the non-O157:H7 E. coli strains. The study of the survival of STEC strains during the artificial digestion highlighted an important difference of behavior for the 2 strains tested: the E. coli O157:H7 strain was able only to survive whereas the E. coli O26:H11 strain knew an important growth at the end of digestion.
