Abstract

Avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC) and human uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) may encounter similar difficulties during the establishment of infection in extraintestinal sites. They may share similar virulence genes and the ability to cause disease. In the present study, 12 APEC isolates and 16 UPEC isolates were compared by their virulence genes content, The two groups showed a significant overlap of virulence genotypes including genes encoding adhesins (fimH, fimAvMT78, and papC), which were the most prevalent genes among both APEC and human UPEC isolates. Genes related to large transmissible R plasmid known as pTJ100 plasmid (isS, iutA, sitA, and traT) were more dominant among APEC than UPEC isolates, iron-related (feoB gene) that mediates ferric iron uptake and ompT gene which encodes outer membrane proteins and presented with high incidence in APEC isolates, while tsh gene was absent in the two groups. these results indicated that the examined virulence genes occurred among both APEC and human UPEC isolates but with differences in their prevalence, these similarities give a hypothesis that APEC probably serves as a source or as a reservoir of virulence genes for human ExPEC and may be able to cause extraintestinal disease in humans.

Key words: E.coli, virulence genes, PCR, broilers, and humans