DNA probes for identification of enteroinvasive Escherichia coli

Eighty-one Escherichia coli strains belonging to all known invasive O serogroups were tested with two distinct invasiveness probes (pMR17 and pSF55). All 54 Sereny test-positive strains and 5 strains that lost Sereny positivity during storage hybridized with both probes. Probe-positive strains carried a 120- to 140-megadalton plasmid, did not produce lysine decarboxylase, and, with the exception of certain serotypes, were nonmotile. Motile strains of serotype O144:H25 were for the first time characterized as invasive by hybridization with the probes.