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Introduction Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) comprise an important group of zoonotic pathogens causing a broad spectrum of disorders in humans, including mild to severe diarrhea, hemorrhagic colitis (HC) and the life-threatening condition hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). Although most outbreaks and sporadic cases of STEC have been attributed to strains belonging to serotype O157:H7, the frequency of non-O157 STEC infections is increasing in several regions. More than 400 non-O157 STEC serotypes have been described so far and a considerable proportion of them have been linked to human illness. In Brazil, human infections due to STEC are mainly associated with non-O157 serotypes, of which O26:H11, O103:H2 and O111:H8/H-(non-motile) accounted for the majority of cases. STEC O103:H2 was first described as a causative agent of HUS in 1992. Since then, serotype O103:H2 has been implicated either in outbreaks or in sporadic cases of gastroenteritis and HUS in Europe, Japan [9] and the United States. In Brazil, STEC O103:H2 was isolated for the first time in 1986, and re-emerged years later as causative agent of infantile diarrhea and hemolytic anemia. Despite the fact that multiple STEC strains have already been isolated from farm animals, such as cattle and pigs in Brazil, none of them belonged to the known pathogenic serotype O103:H2 and did not display the virulence repertoire commonly associated with severe human disease (i.e., stx plus eae and/or ehxA genes). This is the first report of STEC O103:H2 isolated and characterized from animals in Brazil.

Palabras clave: STEC O103:H2; sheep; virulence features.

2014-01-15   |   731 visitas   |   Evalua este artículo 0 valoraciones

Vol. 8 Núm.1. Enero 2014 Pags. 126-128 J Infect Developing Countries 2014; 8(1)