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Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the frequency and allele associations of locus of enterocyte effacement encoded and genes among 181 enteropathogenic (EPEC) strains (90 diarrhoea-associated and 91 controls) isolated from Peruvian children under 18 months of age. We analysed , , and alleles by PCR-RFLP. EPEC strains were isolated with higher frequency from healthy controls (91/424, 21.7 %) than from diarrhoeal samples (90/936, 9.6 %) (<0.001); 28.9 % of diarrhoeal and 17.6 % of control samples were typical EPEC (tEPEC). The distribution of alleles (alpha, beta, beta2 and gamma) and alleles (alpha, beta, gamma and a new variant, -N1) between tEPEC and atypical EPEC (aEPEC) was significantly different (<0.05). -alpha was more common among acute episodes (<0.05). typing resulted in five alleles (alpha, beta, gamma and two new sub-alleles, -alpha2 and -alpha3), while -beta and -gamma2 were the most common intimin receptor subtypes. Seventy-two combinations of , , and alleles were found; the most prevalent combination was -beta, -beta, -beta, -beta (34/181 strains), which was more frequent among tEPEC strains (<0.05). Our findings indicate that there is a high degree of heterogeneity among EPEC strains isolated from Peruvian children and that aEPEC and tEPEC variants cluster.

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2012-08-01
2025-03-26
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