ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Infectious Agents and Disease
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1599350
This article is part of the Research TopicInfectious disease control in the microbial functional genomics eraView all 7 articles
The diverse virulence potential of atypical enteropathogenic Escherichia coli isolated from diarrhea. The emergence of a hybrid pathotype?
Provisionally accepted
Ana Carolina de Mello Santos*
Roberta S Silva
Monica Vieira
Cristina Viana-NieroMatheus S F RibeiroBeatriz E C Guth
Tânia Aparecida Tardelli Gomes
Rosa Maria Silva*- Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
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Despite being in the era of advanced technology, the world still suffers from old infectious diseases, both intestinal and extraintestinal, where Escherichia coli plays a major role as the etiological agent. Atypical enteropathogenic E. coli (aEPEC) is one of six intestinal pathogenic E. coli pathotypes and one of the major agents causing diarrhea in low- and middle-income countries like Brazil. In this work, we have investigated to what extent a collection of aEPEC isolated from the intestinal tract of children has incorporated virulence traits involved in the development of extraintestinal infections. Most of the strains originated from phylogroup B1 (48.6%) and A (36.3%), followed by groups B2 (13.5%) and E (8.1%). About half of the aEPEC strains presented markers for pathogenicity islands originally described in uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC), PAI IV536 being the most prevalent. Many aEPEC strains presented the virulence genetic markers that are the hallmark of extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli (ExPEC). Besides, many strains produced bacteriocins and hemolysins and survived in human serum. Five strains fulfilled the molecular criteria to be classified as ExPEC and one as UPEC, highlighting the existence of hybrid genotypes among aEPEC strains. Three non-phylogenetic-related hybrid strains were chosen for further experiments. These strains were lethal in the Galleria mellonella model for ExPEC virulence, and the comparative analysis of their genomes revealed they belong to different EPEC/EHEC global clonal groups. Overall, this study reports the presence of many attributes of virulence of ExPEC in a comprehensive collection of aEPEC strains. The data presented here indicate the existence of genotypic hybrid aEPEC/ExPEC and aEPEC/UPEC pathogens, suggesting that they can express both intestinal and extraintestinal virulence determinants in humans. Therefore, the consequences of their colonization and infection are more concerning and potentially life-threatening.
Keywords: ExPEC, UPEC, aEPEC, Children diarrhea, Escherichia coli, hybrid pathogenic, hetero-pathogenic
Received: 02 Apr 2025; Accepted: 19 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Santos, Silva, Vieira, Viana-Niero, Ribeiro, Guth, Gomes and Silva. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Ana Carolina de Mello Santos, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Rosa Maria Silva, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
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