Molecular characterization of diarrheagenic Escherichia coli from an outpatient pediatric population with diarrhea attended in two hospitals from Buenos Aires, Argentina

Diarrheagenic Escherichia coli comprises a heterogeneous group of pathotypes or pathogenic variants that share phenotypic characteristics with marked differences in virulence genes, colonization sites, pathogenesis, clinical presentation, and epidemiology of infection. The most studied pathotypes are Shiga toxin -producing E. coli (STEC), enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC), enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC), enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC), and enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC). The objective of the study was to characterize the isolates of diarrheagenic E. coli from an outpatient pediatric population with diarrhea attended in two public hospitals from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Diarrheagenic E. coli pathotypes were investigated by amplifying characteristic virulence gene fragments: intimin (eae), heat -labile toxin (lt), heat -stable toxins (stp, sth), invasion plasmid antigen H (ipaH), transcriptional activator R (aggR) and Shiga toxins (stx1, stx2). Molecular subtyping of isolates was performed using PFGE (XbaI). Diarrheagenic E. coli was detected in 14% (84/601) of cases. The EAEC pathotype was prevalent, while ETEC, STEC, EPEC and EIEC were found in a lower proportion. EAEC isolates exhibited a high degree of genetic diversity. All pathotypes were found in children under 5 years of age, while only EAEC, EIEC and ETEC were detected in the older population. Future studies that include the characterization of isolates from a greater number of genes and populations from other geographical areas will be necessary to determine the relevance of diarrheagenic E. coli in Argentina. (c) 2023 Asociaci & oacute;n Argentina de Microbiolog & iacute;a. Published by Elsevier Espa & ntilde;a, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY -NC -ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/).