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Infect Immun, February 1998, p. 645-649, Vol. 66, No. 2
0019-9567/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Occurrence of Virulence-Associated Properties in Enterobacter cloacae

Rogéria Keller,¹ Margareth Z. Pedroso,² Rosana Ritchmann,³ and Rosa M. Silva^1,*

Departamento de Microbiologia, Imunologia, e Parasitologia¹ and Departamento de Pediatria,² Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, 04023-062 São Paulo, SP, and Hospital do Servidor Público Estadual, 04039-030 São Paulo, SP,³ Brazil

Received 14 July 1997/Returned for modification 23 September 1997/Accepted 25 November 1997

Enterobacter cloacae is not a primary human pathogen but has been considered to be an important cause of nosocomial infections. Even so, there are almost no reports on its ability to produce recognized virulence-associated properties. In this study, we show that most of the E. cloacae strains examined were resistant to serum bactericidal activity and were able to produce aerobactin and mannose-sensitive hemagglutinin, and all of them could adhere to and invade HEp-2 cells. Since E. cloacae is part of the normal intestinal floras of many individuals, we believe that infectious disease due to endogenous E. cloacae might be a result of both host predisposing factors and the bacterial virulence determinants that we have detected in this survey.

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^* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Disciplina de Microbiologia, Dept. Microbiologia, Imunologia e Parasitologia, Escola Paulista de Medicina, UNIFESP, Rua Botucatu, 862-3^o Andar-V.Clementino, CEP 04023-062 São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Phone: (011) 5084-3213. Fax: (011) 5716504. E-mail: rmsilva.dmip{at}epm.br.

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