TABLE 5.

Presence of stx_2e bacteriophage-specific genes in stx_2e-positive STEC strains

No. of P27 gene loci	PCR detection of bacteriophage P27 genes outside stxAB2ea				No. of positive strains
	Integrase (yecE-int [L01]) (0-283)b	Putative P27 Q gene (L21) (13854-14056)	DNA methylase- stxA2e (L24) (16828-17599)	Holin (stxB2e-S [L28]) (18607-19405)
0	0	0	0	0	1
1	+	0	0	0	6
1	0	0	+	0	46
2	0	0	+	+	23
2	+	0	0	+	8
3	+	0	+	+	6
3	+	+	+	0	13
4	+	+	+	+	7
No. of positive strains	40	20	95	44

^a0, PCR negative; +, PCR positive.

^bPCR product position in bacteriophage P27 sequence (accession no. AJ298298).