Analysis of Escherichia coli O157 clinical isolates by multilocus sequence typing

Although many strain typing methods exist for pathogenic Escherichia coli, most have drawbacks in terms of resolving power, interpretability, or scalability. For this reason, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) is an appealing alternative especially when applied to the typing of temporal and spatially separated isolates. This method relies on an unambiguous DNA sequence analysis of nucleotide polymorphisms in housekeeping genes and has shown a high degree of intraspecies discriminatory power for bacterial and fungal pathogens.

Here we used the MLST method to study the genetic diversity among E. coli O157 isolates collected from humans from two different locations of USA over a period of several years (2000-2008). MLST analysis of 33 E. coli O157 patient isolates using the eBurst algorithm distinguished 26 different sequence types (STs), which were clustered into two clonal groups and 11 singletons. The predominant ST was ST2, which consisted of 5 isolates (14.28%) followed by ST1 (11.42%). All the isolates under clonal group I exhibited a virtually similar virulence profile except for two strains, which tested negative for the presence of stx genes. The isolates that were assigned to clonal group II in addition to the 11 singletons were found to be phylogenetically distant from clonal group I. Furthermore, we observed a positive correlation between the virulence profile of the isolates and their clonal origin.

Our data suggests the presence of genetic diversity among E. coli O157 isolates from humans shows no measurable correlation to the geographic origin of the isolates.