Abstract
This study was conducted in North Coast region, Egypt on 40 camels (Camelus dromedarius), including, 30 females and 10 males aged from 1 to 5 years old during 2021 to study the role of surrounding environment in transmission of E. coli to camels beside detect the presence of some virulence genes in the obtained isolates by PCR. It was found that the recovery rate of E. coli from different examined samples after biochemical confirmation of the recovered isolates on Eosin Methylene Blue media (EMB) was 37.5, 20, 46.7 and 33.3% in the examined samples of fecal swabs, milk, soil, and water respectively. Serological typing of 33 E. coli isolates recovered from different sources clarified the presence of O26, O55, O113, O111, O121, and O128 serotypes. Finally, some virulence genes including, eaeA and hylA genes were detected in the recovered E. coli serotypes with percentage of 51.5 and 69.7%, respectively. At the end, it was concluded that pathogenic E. coli were recovered from fecal swabs and milk of the examined camels as well as water and soil that may highlight the role the surrounding environment of camels of as source of infection of camels by the detected bacteria so disinfection of soil and water with selective efficient disinfectant may be a solution for such problem.

Key words: E. coli, Isolation, Serotyping, virulence genes, Camels,