Phylogeny, Clinical Associations, and Diagnostic Utility of the Pilin Subunit Gene (sfpA) of Sorbitol-Fermenting, Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H−

ABSTRACT The plasmid-borne sfpA gene encodes the pilin subunit in sorbitol-fermenting (SF) enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O157:H−. We investigated the distribution of sfpA among 600 E. coli isolates comprising the complete E. coli standard reference (ECOR) and diarrheagenic E. coli (DEC) strain collections and clinical isolates associated with enteric disease. sfpA was detected in DEC3F SF EHEC O157:H− strain 493/89, each of 107 SF EHEC O157:H− clinical isolates, and 14 Shiga toxin-negative SF E. coli O157:H− strains which contained eae, which encodes γ-intimin, and fliC, which encodes the H7 antigen. sfpA was absent from all other strains, including the ECOR strain collection, all non-SF EHEC O157:H7 strains, and all E. coli O55:H7 strains (E. coli O55:H7 is the postulated ancestor of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli [STEC] O157). These results suggest that there was a single acquisition of the sfpA gene in the nonmotile SF E. coli O157 branch, presumably after the eae-encoding pathogenicity island (the locus of enterocyte effacement) was acquired and motility was lost. We then applied the sfpA PCR in combination with rfbO157, stx, and eae PCRs to screen 636 stool samples from patients with diarrhea or hemolytic-uremic syndrome for SF STEC O157:H−. In 27 cases, the simultaneous presence of the sfpA, eae, and rfbO157 amplicons indicated the presence of SF E. coli O157:H− strains, and the result was subsequently confirmed by isolation. All but two of these strains possessed stx2. None of the other stool samples was positive by the sfpA PCR; 59 of these stool samples contained EHEC O157:H7. The sfpA gene can be recommended as a target for screening for SF E. coli O157:H−.