Emerging Infectious Diseases (Aug 2007)

PCR versus Hybridization for Detecting Virulence Genes of Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli

  • Robert S. Gerrish,
  • James E. Lee,
  • June Reed,
  • Joel Williams,
  • Larry D. Farrell,
  • Kathleen M. Spiegel,
  • Peter P. Sheridan,
  • Malcolm S. Shields

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1308.060428
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 8
pp. 1253 – 1253

Abstract

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We compared PCR amplification of 9 enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli virulence factors among 40 isolates (21 O/H antigenicity classes) with DNA hybridization. Both methods showed 100% of the chromosomal and phage genes: eae, stx, and stx2. PCR did not detect 4%–20% of hybridizable plasmid genes: hlyA, katP, espP, toxB, open reading frame (ORF) 1, and ORF2.

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