[Genetic causes of possible pathogenicity factors of urinary tract strains (E. coli)]

E. coli strains isolated from urinary specimens of patients suffering from pyelonephritis can be defined as uropathogenic by the following entities: production of hemolysins, adhesins and hydroxamates, serum resistance, capsule formation and specific O: H antigenes. The presence of these properties do not coincide with the carriage of specific plasmids encoding these functions. Moreover, using the plasmid pattern analysis identical uropathogenic clones distributed among the patients investigated could not be detected. These data point to the facts that in spite of specific marker combinations which give rise to uropathogenicity, a full range of different biological qualified strains occur. The clinical significance of these strains remain to be elucidated.