title: Invasive strains of Escherichia coli belonging to serotype O121:NM.
abstract: Ten strains of Escherichia coli isolated from 10 travellers with sporadic diarrhea who were returning to Tokyo, Japan, from abroad were found to be of serotype O121:NM and were positive in the Serény test for invasiveness; this suggests that this serotype can cause a shigellosis-like illness in humans. The E. coli O121:NM strains were positive in the cell invasion test in HeLa cells. Analysis of the plasmid content of these strains showed that they contained a high-molecular-mass plasmid of 120 to 140 MDa which has been associated with invasiveness and were positive in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for detection of the virulence plasmid-encoded proteins of Shigella spp. and enteroinvasive E. coli.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Tokyo Metropolitan Research Laboratory of Public Health, Japan.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Matsushita
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kai
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kudoh
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D003967:Diarrhea / Q000382:microbiology; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D012703:Serotyping; D014195:Travel; D014774:Virulence