JCM Accepts, published online ahead of print on 21 October 2009

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J. Clin. Microbiol. doi:10.1128/JCM.01036-09
Copyright (c) 2009, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

(CGG)₄-based PCR as a Novel Tool for Uropathogenic Escherichia coli Discrimination: Comparison with ERIC-PCR

Wioletta Adamus-Bialek, Arkadiusz Wojtasik, Marta Majchrzak, Marek Sosnowski, and Pawel Parniewski^*

Institute of Medical Biology PAS, 106 Lodowa Str., 93-232 Lodz, Poland; Military Teaching Hospital No. 2, Medical University of Lodz, 113 Zeromskiego Str., 90-549 Lodz, Poland

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: pparniewski{at}cbm.pan.pl.

Urinary tract infections (UTI) are one of the most frequent bacterial diseases in humans, and Escherichia coli is most often the relevant pathogen. A specific pathotype of E. coli, known as uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC), often causes serious and difficult-to-treat infections of the urinary tract. We propose a new single-tube screening tool that uses (N)₆(CGG)₄ primer to generate fingerprint profiles that allow rapid discrimination and epidemiology of this group of bacteria. We found 71 different CGG-PCR profiles among 127 E. coli strains, while ERIC-PCR of the same group yielded only 28 profiles. Additionally, the (CGG)₄-based PCR test turned out to be very effective for clustering UPEC strains exhibiting multiple virulence genes and usually belonging to the B2 phylogenetic group, and separated these strains from E. coli strains lacking most of UPEC-specific virulence factors. Since the reproducibility of the CGG-PCR screen is higher than that of ERIC-PCR, our test should be a valuable means of increasing the discriminatory power of current UPEC typing schemes.