title: Distribution of putative adhesins in Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) strains isolated from different sources in Chile.
abstract: The distribution of three putative adhesin genes in 123 Shiga toxin-producing (STEC) strains was determined by PCR. The STEC strains were isolated from human patients (n=90) and food (n=33) and were characterized by serogroup, virulence markers (eae, stx(1), stx(2)) and adherence factors (efa1, lpfA(O157), saa) genes. Serogroups O157 (64.4%) and O26 (28.8%) were the most frequent among human strains and the majority (60.6%) of food strains were serologically non-typable. The adhesin genes efa1 (90%) and lpfA(O157) (73.3%) were the most common in humans strains and saa (45.5%) in food strains. The presence of these genes in addition to eae in STEC from different sources may suggest a relevant role in their pathogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Programa de Microbiología, Instituto de Ciencias Biomédicas, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vidal
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Escobar
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Prado
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Hormazabal
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vidal
mesh_terms: D018829:Adhesins, Bacterial / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D002677:Chile / Q000453:epidemiology; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005260:Female; D005516:Food Microbiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D018829:Adhesins, Bacterial; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; C439650:SAA protein, E coli