In. Okeke et al., Characterization of Escherichia coli strains from cases of childhood diarrhea in provincial southwestern Nigeria, J CLIN MICR, 38(1), 2000, pp. 7-12
In a study carried out in small-town and rural primary health care centers
in southwestern Nigeria, 330 Escherichia coli strains isolated from 187 chi
ldren with diarrhea and 144 apparently healthy controls were examined for v
irulence traits, Based on the results of colony blot hybridization, strains
were categorized as enteropathogenic E. coli (1.8%), enterotoxigenic E, co
li (2.4%), enteroinvasive E, coli (1.2%), enterohemorrhagic E, coli (0.6%),
enteroaggregative E, coli (10.3%), diffusely adherent E, coli (7.9%), cell
-detaching E. coli (6.9%), and cytolethal distending toxin-producing E, col
i (0.9%). E, coli strains that hybridized with a Shiga toxin gene probe but
lacked other characteristics usually present in enterohemorrhagic E, coli
constituted 8.4% of the isolates. Ninety-seven E, coli isolates adhered to
HEp-2 cells in an aggregative fashion but did not hybridize with any of the
probes employed in the study. Overall the pathotypes, apart from cytoletha
l distending toxin-producing E. coli, were recovered both from children wit
h diarrhea and from children without diarrhea, though to a lower extent fro
m the healthy children, All diarrheagenic E. coli strains were associated w
ith diarrhea (P < 0.02). Heat-stable-enterotoxin-producing enterotoxigenic
E, coli showed significant association with diarrhea (P < 0.02), as did str
ains that demonstrated aggregative adherence to HEp-2 cells (P < 0.04), but
not those that hybridized,vith the CVD432 enteroaggregative probe.