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Infection and Immunity, June 2000, p. 3327-3336, Vol. 68, No. 6
Medical Service, VA Medical Center, and Department of
Medicine, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis,
Minnesota1; Department of Molecular,
Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa
Barbara,2 and Department of Medicine
and Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of
California, Davis,3 California; and
Medical Service, VA Medical Center, and Department of Medicine,
Center for Microbial Pathogenesis, State University of New York at
Buffalo, Buffalo, New York4
Received 11 November 1999/Returned for modification 21 December
1999/Accepted 23 March 2000
Although dogs have been proposed as carriers of extraintestinal
pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) with infectious
potential for humans, presumed host species-specific differences
between canine and human ExPEC strains have cast doubt on this
hypothesis. The recent discovery that allele III of papG
(the P fimbrial adhesin gene) predominates among human cystitis
isolates and confers an adherence phenotype resembling that of canine
ExPEC prompted the present reevaluation of the canine-human ExPEC
connection. Sixteen paired pap-positive urine and
rectal E. coli isolates from dogs with urinary tract
infection were studied. papG (adhesin) and papA
(pilin) allele type, agglutination phenotypes, virulence factor
genotypes, and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA and
pulsed-field gel electrophoresis fingerprints were analyzed and
compared with those of human ExPEC controls. The 16 canine strains contained predominantly papG allele III.
Agglutination phenotypes segregated strictly according to
papG allele status and were homogeneous among strains with
the same papG allele profile irrespective of their human
versus canine origin. Canine and human PapG variant III peptide
sequences were highly homologous, without host species-specific differences. The most prevalent canine papA allele was F48,
a novel variant recently identified among human urosepsis isolates. In
addition to pap, human ExPEC-associated virulence genes
detected among the canine strains included sfa/focDE,
sfaS, fyuA, hlyA, cnf1,
cdtB, kpsMT-II and -III, rfc,
traT, ompT, and a marker for a
pathogenicity-associated island from archetypal human ExPEC strain
CFT073. Molecular fingerprinting confirmed the fecal origin of all but
one canine urine isolate and showed one pair of O6 canine urine and
fecal isolates to be extremely similar to an O6 human
urosepsis isolate with which they shared all other genotypic and
phenotypic characteristics analyzed. These data demonstrate that canine
ExPEC strains are similar to, and in some instances essentially
indistinguishable from, human ExPEC strains, which implicates dogs and
their feces as potential reservoirs of E. coli with
infectious potential for humans.
0019-9567/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Evidence of Commonality between Canine and Human Extraintestinal
Pathogenic Escherichia coli Strains That Express
papG Allele III
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Infectious
Diseases (111F), Minneapolis VA Medical Center, 1 Veterans Dr.,
Minneapolis, MN 55417. Phone: (612) 725-2000, ext. 4185. Fax: (612)
725-2273. E-mail: johns007{at}tc.umn.edu.
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