A study on virulence markers of Klebsiella isolated from foods and clinical samples

This study related to characterization and correlation of different virulen ce factors viz.. haemolysin. lecithinase activity, dermotoxigenicity. enter otoxigenicity and cytotoxigenicity of 225 Klebsiella strains comprising K. pneumoniae (185). K. oxytoca (11) and K. planticola (29) isolated from food samples (196), healthy dogs (7), clinically ill human (14) and animal (8) patients. Study revealed cytotoxigenicity to be the best correlated (r. 0.7 9) factor with mouse lethality potential of klebsiellae followed by edemoge nicity in mouse food pad (r, 0.70), erythemogenicity in rabbit skin (r. 0.6 8), lecithinase (r. 0.68) and haemolytic (r. 0.62) activities. Other virule nt factors like enterotoxigenicity and dermonecrotoxigenicity had poor corr elation with mouse lethality. Enterotoxigenicity was apparent in Klebsiella isolated from diarrhocal patients irrespective of their mouse lethality. T he results indicated the role of cytotoxigenicity in precipitation of syste mic klebsiellosis while that of enterotoxigenicity in gastrointestinal diso rders due to Klebsiella.