EXPRESSION OF ANTIGENICALLY DISTINCT FIMBRIAE WITH HEMAGGLUTINATION AND HELA-CELL ADHERENCE PROPERTIES BY AN ENTEROAGGREGATIVE ESCHERICHIA-COLI STRAIN BELONGING TO THE ENTEROPATHOGENIC SEROGROUP

An enteroaggregative Escherichia coli (EAggEC) strain (DS92), isolated from a case of infantile diarrhea, was shown to express mannose-resis tant hemagglutination and HeLa cell adhering properties when grown at 37 degrees C but not at 28 degrees C. Cellular adherence properties of DS92, which belonged to enteropathogenic serogroup 0125, were shown t o correlate well with the expression of fimbriae that were encoded by a 112 kb plasmid. The fimbriae of the EAggEC strain DS92 were composed of 20 kDa subunit proteins and were serologically distinct from fimbr ial or non-fimbrial cell surface antigen(s) of other diarrheagenic E. coli strains including the reference EAggEC strain 17-2. Interestingly , the 20-kDa fimbrial protein was found to be antigenically related to 18- and 14.5-kDa cell surface proteins of two other locally isolated EAggEC strains belonging to the enteropathogenic serogroup 086.