Genomes of Escherichia coli bacteraemia isolates originating from urinary tract foci contain more virulence-associated genes than those from non-urinary foci and neutropaenic hosts

摘要

Objectives: Escherichia coli is the leading cause of bacteraemia. In an era of emerging multi-drug-resistant strains, development of effective preventative strategies will be informed by knowledge of strain diversity associated with specific infective syndromes/patient groups. We hypothesised that the number of virulence factor (VF) genes amongst bacteraemia isolates from neutropaenic patients would be lower than isolates from immunocompetent patients.