STRUCTURAL AND GENETIC STUDIES ON THE O-ANTIGENS OF ESCHERICHIA ALBERTII, A RECENTLY RECOGNIZED CLOSE RELATIVE OF ESCHERICHIA COLI

摘要

Escherichia albertii is a new emerging diarrhoeagenic pathogen of humans and birds, which caused sporadic infections and outbreaks in different countries. It was first isolated from five Bangladeshi children with diarrhea and initially identified as Hafnia alvei. In 2003, it was re-classfied as E. albertii, a new enteric bacterial species within the genus Escherichia, which also includes Escherichia coli and Escherichia fergusonii. Recently, a substantial proportion of strains earlier identified as enteropathogenic and enterohemorrhagic E. coli have been shown to be E. albertii. In this work, we established O-polysaccharide structures and characterized O-antigen gene clusters of representative strains of all seven E. albertii molecular types (and potential O-serotypes) that have been recognized recently (H. Wang et al., Front. Microbiol. 2017, 8, 1857).