Urinary tract infections (UTI) caused primarily by uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) are indeed an extremely contagious disease that affects people all over the world. FimH is a major virulence component in UTI pathogenesis, and inhibiting function can be efficient means to disarm UPEC bacteria, as well crucial target development of non-antibiotic mediated treatment options. The goal this s...

has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Master of Science degree in Microbiology at the May 2012 graduation. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Steve Clegg for his support and guidance during my time in his lab. He has helped me learn a lot about how to do science and how to think about science. He has been supportive of the decisions I have ma...

This study provides the first description of healthcare-associated infections with Escherichia coli clonal group A (CgA) isolates in Latin America. Isolates were typed by enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus-PCR, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, E. coli phylogenetic grouping, multilocus sequence typing and fimH single nucleotide polymorphism analysis. Out of 42 E. coli hospital isol...

Background: Although Escherichia coli (E. coli)is a part of intestinal normal microflora of warm-blooded animals, includingpoultry, outbreaks occur in poultry raised below standard sanitation and duringthe course of respiratory or immunosuppressive diseases. Avian pathogenic E.coli (APEC) harbors several genes associated with virulence andpathogenicity. APEC strains are responsible for some dis...

FimH is the type 1 fimbrial tip adhesin and invasin of Escherichia coli. Its ligands are the glycans on specific proteins enriched in membrane microdomains. FimH binding shows high-affinity recognition of paucimannosidic glycans, which are shortened high-mannose glycans such as oligomannose-3 and -5. FimH can recognize equally the (single) high-mannose glycan on uroplakin Ia, on the urinary def...