Shiga-like toxin II-related cytotoxins in Citrobacter freundii strains from humans and beef samples

By hybridizing colonies grown from 928 individual stool samples of patients suffering from diarrhea with oligonucleotide probes 772 and 849 complementary to Shiga-like toxin I (SLT-I) and SLT-II gene sequences, respectively, we identified two strains that hybridized with probe 849, which biochemical identification revealed as Citrobacter freundii. An additional five slt-II probe-positive isolates were screened from 81 beef samples. Polymerase chain reaction analysis and restriction of amplified products provided evidence for slt-II-related genes in all seven strains. From C. freundii LM 76, the genes encoding the A and B subunits were cloned in pUC 18 vectors and sequenced. The gene encoding the A subunit differed from that of Escherichia coli slt-IIvhc in 4 bases, resulting in two amino acid residue differences. In 11, 13, and 11 nucleotides, differentiation of slt-IIA, slt-IIcA, and vtx2haA, respectively, was found. These differences affected the predicted amino acid sequence as follows: there were six amino acid differences with SLT-IIA, five with SLT-IIcA, and four with VTx2haA. The nucleotide sequence of the gene encoding the B subunit is identical to slt-IIvhcB and differed from slt-IIcB and vtx2haB by only a single nucleotide base, but this resulted in a predicted amino acid sequence identical to that reported for these toxins. We therefore termed the toxin genes C. freundii slt-IIcA and slt-IIcB. Culture filtrates inoculated with material from the colonies from primary cultures were cytotoxic to Vero cells. Neutralization assays with antisera to E. coli SLT-I, SLT-II, and SLT-IIvhc revealed that antibodies against SLT-IIvhc reduced the C. freundii cytotoxic activity specifically and to the same degree as with the E. coli SLT-IIvhc control strain. In five of the seven strains tested, subcultivation on both a liquid or solid medium resulted in loss of cytotoxic activity. With polymerase chain reaction, we demonstrated that loss of cytotoxic activity ran parallel with the loss of slt genes. These data demonstrate the intergeneric occurrence of SLT-II-related toxins, which may well be a new marker of enteropathogenicity in C. freundii. Our findings that the toxin genes belong to the slt-II family plus their evident instability in the majority of strains should help pave the way to a better understanding of their role in diarrhea or food poisoning.