Identification of an aggregative adhesion fimbria (AAF) type III-encoding operon in enteroaggregative Escherichia coli as a sensitive probe for detecting the AAF-encoding operon family.

ABSTRACT: Enteroaggregative Escherichia coli (EAEC) is recognized as an emerging cause of diarrhea in children and adults worldwide, and recent studies have implicated EAEC in persistent diarrhea in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In this study, we identified aggregative adhesion fimbria type III (AAF-III) in isolate 55989, a typical EAEC strain. Analysis of the sequence of the plasmid-borne agg-3 gene cluster encoding AAF-III showed this cluster to be closely related to the agg and aaf operons and to the afa operons carried by diffusely adherent pathogenic E. coli. We investigated the adhesion properties of a collection of 25 EAEC strains isolated from HIV-infected patients presenting with persistent diarrhea. We found that a minority of strains (36%) carried sequences si

SUBMITTER: Bernier C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC128174 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature