ribotyping of epec isolates from diarrheal and asymptomatic patients in iran

aim : we intended to find out the diversity of epec isolates among asymptomatic or diarrheal children in iran using ribotyping. background : enteropathogenic escherichia coli (epec) is responsible for gastroenteritis especially in young children. patients and methods : a total of 39 epec collected strains were serotyped and the presence of virulence genes as well as eaf plasmid among the strains was studied . adherence assay was also performed. clonal diversity of the isolates was investigated using ribotyping. results : of 39 studied strains of e. coli , 6 serogroups of epec were represented. the presence of the stx gene was ascertained in 7 isolates and the eaea , eaeb and bfpa genes were harbored by 5, 3 and 1 strains, respectively. ribotyping yielded 9 different clusters. conclusion : according to our results there was not a significant correlation between the results of serotyping and those of ribotyping. however, different serotypes of e. coli may belong to the same ribotype clusters and vice versa.