PCR versus Hybridization for Detecting Virulence Genes of Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli

摘要

We compared PCR amplifi cation of 9 enterohemor-rhagic Escherichia coli virulence factors among 40 isolates (21 O/H antigenicity classes) with DNA hybridization. Both methods showed 100% of the chromosomal and phage genes: eae, stx, and stx2. PCR did not detect 4%–20% of hybridizable plasmid genes: hlyA, katP, espP, toxB, open reading frame (ORF) 1, and ORF2