TRS-PCR profiling for discrimination of Escherichia coli strains isolated from children with diarrhea under 5 years of age in Lodz region, Poland

Escherichia coli is one of the most frequently isolated gram-negative pathogens in cases of foodborne diseases and hospital infections. What is more, diarrheal diseases, including these associated with pathogenic E. coli strains, are leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, especially among children. Improvements of the management of diarrheal diseases caused by these bacteria are in the spotlight of the World Health Organization. Therefore, there is still a need to develop new methods or improve ones that are commonly used to characterize and distinguish E. coli strains more precisely. In this work, TRS-based PCRs were effectively used for discrimination of 123 E. coli strains isolated from children with diarrhea in the Lodz region (Poland). The composite TRS-PCR approach, based on similarity comparisons of GTG-PCR and CGG-PCR fingerprints, enabled us to distinguish strains with very good efficacy. This was confirmed by the high diversity index (0.991) and high reproducibility of the band patterns obtained (95.0 %). These results showed the great variation in strains that may cause infections in children under 38 months. However, the stains were grouped in three separate clusters, which were different in terms of their phylogenetic affiliation and virulence factor repertoire. The obtained results support and are consistent with the need of public health surveillance for searching new and fast assays as far as children’s health is concerned. TRS-PCR profiling is an effective tool for genotyping of E. coli strains isolated from children with diarrhea.