Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Journal of Clinical Microbiology logoLink to Journal of Clinical Microbiology
. 1996 Feb;34(2):463–465. doi: 10.1128/jcm.34.2.463-465.1996

Enterobacter cloacae producing a Shiga-like toxin II-related cytotoxin associated with a case of hemolytic-uremic syndrome.

A W Paton 1, J C Paton 1
PMCID: PMC228823  PMID: 8789041

Abstract

Two Shiga-like toxin-producing organisms were isolated from the feces of an infant with hemolytic-uremic syndrome by PCR followed by colony blot hybridization. One strain was identified as Escherichia coli OR:H9, while the other was identified as Enterobacter cloacae. Both isolates were highly cytotoxic for Vero cells, and Southern hybridization analysis of chromosomal DNA indicated that both contained a single slt-II-related gene and that these genes were located on similarly sized restriction fragments. Nucleotide sequence analysis indicated that the toxin encoded by the E. cloacae slt-II-related gene was very similar to Shiga-like toxin II variants from E. coli, differing from the most closely related toxin by 3 residues in the A subunit.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (201.3 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Beutin L., Geier D., Zimmermann S., Karch H. Virulence markers of Shiga-like toxin-producing Escherichia coli strains originating from healthy domestic animals of different species. J Clin Microbiol. 1995 Mar;33(3):631–635. doi: 10.1128/jcm.33.3.631-635.1995. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Henikoff S. Unidirectional digestion with exonuclease III creates targeted breakpoints for DNA sequencing. Gene. 1984 Jun;28(3):351–359. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(84)90153-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Karch H., Meyer T. Single primer pair for amplifying segments of distinct Shiga-like-toxin genes by polymerase chain reaction. J Clin Microbiol. 1989 Dec;27(12):2751–2757. doi: 10.1128/jcm.27.12.2751-2757.1989. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Karmali M. A. Infection by verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli. Clin Microbiol Rev. 1989 Jan;2(1):15–38. doi: 10.1128/cmr.2.1.15. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Lindgren S. W., Samuel J. E., Schmitt C. K., O'Brien A. D. The specific activities of Shiga-like toxin type II (SLT-II) and SLT-II-related toxins of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli differ when measured by Vero cell cytotoxicity but not by mouse lethality. Infect Immun. 1994 Feb;62(2):623–631. doi: 10.1128/iai.62.2.623-631.1994. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. O'Brien A. D., Holmes R. K. Shiga and Shiga-like toxins. Microbiol Rev. 1987 Jun;51(2):206–220. doi: 10.1128/mr.51.2.206-220.1987. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. O'Brien A. D., Newland J. W., Miller S. F., Holmes R. K., Smith H. W., Formal S. B. Shiga-like toxin-converting phages from Escherichia coli strains that cause hemorrhagic colitis or infantile diarrhea. Science. 1984 Nov 9;226(4675):694–696. doi: 10.1126/science.6387911. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Paton A. W., Bourne A. J., Manning P. A., Paton J. C. Comparative toxicity and virulence of Escherichia coli clones expressing variant and chimeric Shiga-like toxin type II operons. Infect Immun. 1995 Jul;63(7):2450–2458. doi: 10.1128/iai.63.7.2450-2458.1995. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Paton A. W., Paton J. C., Goldwater P. N., Manning P. A. Direct detection of Escherichia coli Shiga-like toxin genes in primary fecal cultures by polymerase chain reaction. J Clin Microbiol. 1993 Nov;31(11):3063–3067. doi: 10.1128/jcm.31.11.3063-3067.1993. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Paton A. W., Paton J. C., Heuzenroeder M. W., Goldwater P. N., Manning P. A. Cloning and nucleotide sequence of a variant Shiga-like toxin II gene from Escherichia coli OX3:H21 isolated from a case of sudden infant death syndrome. Microb Pathog. 1992 Sep;13(3):225–236. doi: 10.1016/0882-4010(92)90023-h. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Schmidt H., Montag M., Bockemühl J., Heesemann J., Karch H. Shiga-like toxin II-related cytotoxins in Citrobacter freundii strains from humans and beef samples. Infect Immun. 1993 Feb;61(2):534–543. doi: 10.1128/iai.61.2.534-543.1993. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Schmitt C. K., McKee M. L., O'Brien A. D. Two copies of Shiga-like toxin II-related genes common in enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli strains are responsible for the antigenic heterogeneity of the O157:H- strain E32511. Infect Immun. 1991 Mar;59(3):1065–1073. doi: 10.1128/iai.59.3.1065-1073.1991. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Southern E. M. Detection of specific sequences among DNA fragments separated by gel electrophoresis. J Mol Biol. 1975 Nov 5;98(3):503–517. doi: 10.1016/s0022-2836(75)80083-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Yanisch-Perron C., Vieira J., Messing J. Improved M13 phage cloning vectors and host strains: nucleotide sequences of the M13mp18 and pUC19 vectors. Gene. 1985;33(1):103–119. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(85)90120-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Clinical Microbiology are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES