IDENTIFICATION OF ENTEROINVASIVE ESCHERICHIA-COLI AND SHIGELLA STRAINS IN PEDIATRIC-PATIENTS BY AN IPAC-SPECIFIC ENZYME-LINKED-IMMUNOSORBENT-ASSAY

A new method, a monoclonal antibody-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) recognizing a secreted, invasion plasmid-coded protein a ntigen (IpaC), was used to identify enteroinvasive Escherichia coli an d Shigella strains among colonies from 859 cultures of fecal samples f rom children in Kuwait, A total of 33.8% of the samples were diarrheal , By the immunoassay, enteroinvasive E. coli strains were identified f rom two diarrheal samples but from none of the samples from children w ithout diarrhea, These strains were fully virulent and belonged to ser ogroup O28ac, In addition, 26 Shigella strains were also recognized by the ELISA, while only 23 were isolated by routine biotyping and serot yping. For two diarrheal patients, Shigella was identified by culture only, The study showed that the IpaC-specific immunoassay is a simple and useful tool for identifying enteroinvasive strains, Furthermore, b y reporting the first enteroinvasive E. coli isolates from Kuwait, the study indicates the presence of this group of pathogens as a potentia l source of diarrhea in the region.