Association of Virulent Genes hly, sfa, cnf-1 and pap with Antibiotic Sensitivity in Escherichia coli Strains Isolated from Children with Community-Acquired UTI

tion of resistance to some antibiotics. This study was performed to investigate four virulence factors of pap, cnf-1, sfa and hly in resistant E. coli and compare them with susceptible strains of the bacteria isolated from children with community–acquired UTI. Methods: Drug sensitivity of 96 E. coli isolates was evaluated using a disc diffusion method. The prevalence of virulence genes was determined by PCR. Results: E. coli strains showed a high degree of sensitivity to imipenem, amikacin, nitrofurantoin and ciprofloxacin. Approximately, 80.2% of the isolates were resistant to ampicilin. Only 12.5% of the strains were susceptible to all tested antibiotics. PCR showed that cnf-1 (22.9%) was more prevalent than hly (15.6%) and among adhesion coding genes, pap (30.2%) was more prevalent than sfa (18.8%). In all strains, the expression of all virulent genes was less prevalent in most antibiotic resistant groups than in susceptible ones but not statistically significant except for genotypes of pap+-cnf+, pap+- hly+ and cnf+-hly+ with nalidixic acid. Conclusion: We propose that pap and cnf-1 genes in combination with hly gene constitute an uropathogenic genomic configuration which is the characteristic of the nalidixic-acid susceptible E. coli strains, causing urinary tract infection.