Abstract

Nine hundred patients diagnosed with diarrhea or hemorrhagic uremic syndrome in the Kyungpook Province, Korea, were examined from November 1998 to February 2000. One patient in Kumi appeared to possess the Escherichia coli O157:H7 strain, which is very important in clinical decision making and public health action. The isolated strain, an E. coli O157:H7 KM, contained a 60 MDa plasmid and typical virulence genes including the verotoxin 2 gene, ehxA gene (encoding enterohemorrhagic hemolysin), and eae (encoding attaching and effacing protein-intimin) gene. This strain produced only verotoxin 2. Pulsed field gel electrophoretic analysis showed that the genomic organization of the E. coli O157:H7 KM strain may differ greatly from those of representative strains previously reported in the United States and Japan.

• Keywords: Verotoxin; eae; ehxA; PFGE