In:
Journal of Clinical Microbiology, American Society for Microbiology, Vol. 57, No. 10 ( 2019-10)
Abstract:
Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) and the STEC subgroup enterohemorrhagic E. coli cause intestinal infections with symptoms ranging from watery diarrhea to hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS). A key tool for the epidemiological differentiation of STEC is serotyping. The serotype in combination with the main virulence determinants gives important insight into the virulence potential of a strain. However, a large fraction of STEC strains found in human disease, including strains causing HUS, belongs to less frequently detected STEC serovars or their O/H antigens are unknown or even untypeable. Recent implementation of whole-genome sequence (WGS) analysis, in principle, allows the deduction of serovar and virulence gene information. Therefore, here we compared classical serovar and PCR-based virulence marker detection with WGS-based methods for 232 STEC strains, focusing on less frequently detected STEC serovars and nontypeable strains. We found that the results of WGS-based extraction showed a very high degree of overlap with those of the more classical methods. Specifically, the rate of concordance was 97% for O antigens (OAGs) and 99% for H antigens (HAGs) of typeable strains and 〉 99% for stx 1 , stx 2 , or eaeA for all strains. Ninety-eight percent of nontypeable OAGs and 100% of nontypeable HAGs were defined by WGS analysis. In addition, the novel methods enabled a more complete analysis of strains causing severe clinical symptoms and the description of four novel STEC OAG loci. In conclusion, WGS is a promising tool for gaining serovar and virulence gene information, especially from a public health perspective.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0095-1137
,
1098-660X
DOI:
10.1128/JCM.00768-19
Language:
English
Publisher:
American Society for Microbiology
Publication Date:
2019
detail.hit.zdb_id:
1498353-9
SSG:
12
