Abstract

Two hundred and seventy-three Haemophilus influenzae strains isolated from pediatric pneumonia patients in China were studied. We used Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) to analyze genotypic characteristics. All strains were biotyped and serotyped. Relatedness and patterns of genes among isolates were determined by the analysis of MLST and eBURST. H. influenzae primarily causes acute pneumonia in children under 1 year old. Nontypeable H. influenzae was responsible for most cases of pediatric pneumonia. All 273 strains were classified into eight biotypes. They mostly belonged to the I, II, and III biotypes (17.6%, 43.6%, and 22.7%, respectively). 62 strains (22.7%) produced β-lactamase. We found 28 novel alleles. Fifty different STs were found by MLST, of which 39 were novel. These were ST477 through ST508 and ST521 through ST527. Group 17 and predicted founders 503 were new groups in this study. No STs correlated with strains from Korea, which is adjacent to China. The H. influenzae strains from China appeared to have heterogeneous ST types patterns which may be the reason no outbreaks or epidemics of H. influenzae infections have occurred in Chengdu city, Sichuan, China.

• Keywords: Haemophilus influenzae; multilocus sequence typing; biotyping; serotyping