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. 2015 Jun 4:7:57-66.
doi: 10.1016/j.nmni.2015.05.006. eCollection 2015 Sep.

Faecal Escherichia coli isolates show potential to cause endogenous infection in patients admitted to the ICU in a tertiary care hospital

D Nagarjuna  1 , G Mittal  2 , R S Dhanda  3 , P K Verma  4 , R Gaind  2 , M Yadav  1
Affiliations

Faecal Escherichia coli isolates show potential to cause endogenous infection in patients admitted to the ICU in a tertiary care hospital

D Nagarjuna et al. New Microbes New Infect. .

Abstract

Nosocomial infections are acquired during hospital treatment or in a hospital environment. One such infecting agent, Escherichia coli, harbours many virulence genes that enable it to become pathogenic, causing damage to the host. The mechanism of the E. coli virulence factors provenance to cause infection in host environments is not clearly elucidated. We investigated the virulence and pathogenicity of E. coli affected by the host environment. For this, blood (n = 78) and faecal (n = 83) E. coli isolates were collected from patients with and without sepsis, respectively, who had been admitted to the intensive care unit. The E. coli genomic DNA was isolated; the phylogenetic grouping was conducted by triplex PCR. The occurrence of nine virulence genes among the all the isolates was confirmed by gene-specific PCR. The prevalence of E. coli in blood isolates was more in phylogenetic groups B2 and D compared to groups A and B1. However, in faecal isolates, there was no significant difference. The prevalence of adhesin and toxin (papG, sfa, afa, cnf1, hlyA) genes was higher in blood compared to faecal E. coli isolates. However, the prevalence of aer, traT and PAI was similar as well as higher among both of these groups. These observations indicate a role of external environment (hospital setting) on host susceptibility (development of infection) in the faecal E. coli isolates, thereby making the patient prone to a sepsis condition.

Keywords: Escherichia coli; host environment; phylogenetic grouping; sepsis; virulence factors.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Triplex PCR–based comparison of prevalence of phylogenetic groups between blood (n = 78) and faecal (n = 83) Escherichia coli isolates. The p value is calculated by Z test and indicate significance between blood and faecal E. coli isolates.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
(A) Combined prevalence of virulence factors among phylogenetic groups of blood and faecal Escherichia coli isolates. Dotted lines indicate mean values among blood and faecal E. coli isolates. The p value is calculated by Z test and indicates significance among both groups. (B) Expression of virulence genes among phylogenetic groups in blood and faecal E. coli isolates.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
PCR-based prevalence of virulence genes (papG, fimH, sfa, afa, cnf1, hlyA, aer, traT, PAI) between blood (n = 78) and faecal (n = 83) Escherichia coli isolates (A). Solid and empty shapes represent blood and faecal E. coli isolates, respectively (B). The p value is calculated by Z test and indicates significance among both the groups. *p 0.02; **p 0.0001; ns, nonsignificant.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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