Piglet disease due to Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) are classical and associated typically with severe watery diarrhea within the first two weeks of life and occasionally some days after weaning in pigs. E.coli is a well-known and diverse organism though normally harmless commensal, but when it acquires mobile genetic elements becomes a highly pathogenic organism capable of causing a range of diseases. ETEC adhere to the small intestinal microvilli without inducing morphological

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... s and produce enterotoxins acting locally on enterocytes. This leads to hyper-secretions and reduced absorption of electrolytes. The virulence attributes of ETEC are adhesions and toxins and the successful management of the disease is dependent on good understanding of these virulence factors. In pigs ETEC, the commonest adhesions are the fimbriae on the surface K88, K99, 987p, F18ab and F18ac. The enterotoxine of pigs ETEC are further classified into heat-labile (LT) and heat-stable (ST). Other subdivisions of enterotoxin E. coli are LT, STb, STa, Stx2e. The adhesive fimbriae and enterotoxins of piglet ETEC can be evaluated using plasmids. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a specific test and had been used for virulence gene detection of ETEC. In this reviews, we focus on current opinions and knowledge of the various pathogenic pathways that E.coli uses to cause disease in piglet.