The relationship between the serotype and the invasiveness of the strains of E coli for theuri uary tract tissue was studied by inoculation of Escherichia coli, which was isolated from the urine and feces of patients with lower urinary tract infection at the same time, into the rat bladder.
The organisms studied were 84 strains from 44 female patients with acute cystitis. Of these, 46 strains were obtained from the urine, and 38 strains from the feces. The serotypes of the strains from the urine were 0-1, 4, 6, 7, 14, 21, 28 & 75, and from the feces 0-1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 11, 14, 15, 19, 21, 28, 40, 75 & 80.
0.1 ml of pysiological saline containing about 10
3 organisms per ml was transurethraly injected into the bladder of 8 week-aged female Sprague-Dawley rat, and the degree of invasion in the bladder removed 6 hours after injection was observed, using the indirect fluorescent antibody method.
Results:
1. In 32.6%(15/46) of the strains from the urine and 18.4%(7/38) of those from the feces, the invasiveness was found. However, there was no statistically significant difference between these two results.
2. The results of invasiveness in the serotypes were 0-2: 18.1%(2/11), 0-4: 54.6%(6/11), 0-6: 52.6%(10/19), 0-14: 16.6%(1/6) & 0-75: 50.0%(3/6), and the other serotypes were negative in the invasiveness test.
3. When the serotypes were classified in the specific group (0-2, 4, 6 & 75) and the general group (the other serotypes), the degree of invasiveness in the former group was 44.6%(21/47), whereas the degree of that in the latter was only 2.7%(1/37). Thus the highly significant difference between the degree of invasiveness of these two groups was found.
4. Even in the above specific serotype group, the strong, weak or zero invasiveness was observed, and this finding suggests that this difference may be caused by the difference in quantity of virulence factor.
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