Occurrence of virulence-associated properties in Enterobacter cloacae.

Enterobacter cloacae is not a primary human pathogen but has been considered to be an important cause of nosocomial infections. Even so, there are almost no reports on its ability to produce recognized virulence-associated properties. In this study, we show that most of the E. cloacae strains examined were resistant to serum bactericidal activity and were able to produce aerobactin and mannose-sensitive hemagglutinin, and all of them could adhere to and invade HEp-2 cells. Since E. cloacae is part of the normal intestinal floras of many individuals, we believe that infectious disease due to endogenous E. cloacae might be a result of both host predisposing factors and the bacterial virulence determinants that we have detected in this survey.