Surveillance of stool samples for the presence of Enterobacter sakazakii among Korean people.
OBJECTIVE
Enterobacter sakazakii (E. sakazakii) infections are an important cause of life-threatening meningitis, septicemia, and necrotizing enterocolitis in infants. Dried infant formula milk is an important vehicle for E. sakazakii infection. E. sakazakii was isolated in Korea from dried infant formula milk. Although E. sakazakii infection of infants may occur in Korea, its prevalence has not yet been documented. Therefore, we determined the prevalence of E. sakazakii and documented symptoms.


METHODS
Between March and October 2006, 1,146 stool samples were collected from patients at Uijeongbu St. Mary's Hospital. Each fecal swab was dissolved in 10mL of buffered peptone solution, and enriched culture was streaked onto Druggan-Forsythe-Iversen (DFI) agar. Presumptive E. sakazakii colonies that exhibited a blue-green color during culture on DFI medium were selected. The identity of colonies that developed yellow pigment during culture on TSA was determined using the Vitek system and PCR.


RESULTS
We isolated 4 E. sakazakii strains whose 16S rRNA sequence alignments had a similarity of 99% with those of 3 E. sakazakii ATCC strains.


CONCLUSIONS
This is the first report on isolation of E. sakazakii from stool samples and to document the symptoms of Korean patients.
Kim
Jung Beom
JB
Division of Health Research and Planning, Gyeonggi-do Research Institute of Health and Environment, Suwon, Korea.
Cho
Seung-Hak
SH
Park
Yong Bae
YB
Lee
Jung Bok
JB
Kim
Jong Chan
JC
Lee
Bok Kwon
BK
Lee
Hae Kyung
HK
Chae
Hiun Suk
HS
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001483:Base Sequence; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D044083:Cronobacter sakazakii / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D024901:Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial; D004756:Enterobacteriaceae Infections / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012329:RNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D055815:Young Adult
D012329:RNA, Bacterial; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S