Detection of uropathogenic Escherichia coli virulence factors in patients with urinary tract infections in Iran

Besides all human infectious diseases, urinary tract infections have a high prevalence and in the majority of cases Escherichia coli is a dominance bacterium which can cause pyelonephritis and cystitis. In this present study, a total of 123 strains of E. coli isolated from patients with urinary tract infections were tested in a polymerase chain reaction for detection of E. coli’s virulence factors. Results showed that fimH gene with 79.67% had the highest and tsh and usp genes respectively with 0.0% and 1.62% had the lowest presence rates of virulence genes in E. coli isolated from patients with urinary tract infections. Also the presence of cnf1, hlyA, pap, iroN, afa, iuc, iha, ompT and irp2virulence genes were 50.4, 50.4, 50.4, 42.27, 8.13, 10.56, 17.88, 4.87 and 11.38%, respectively. The significant differences (P<0.05) were seen between presence of cnf1, hlyA, pap with ompT and afa virulence genes. So, results indicated the high presence of virulence genes in patients with urinary tract infections in Iran.      Key words: Uropathogenic Escherichia coli, Virulence genes, PCR, Iran.