the prevalence of typical and atypical enteropathogenic escherichia coli strains isolated from non-diarrheal stool samples of children oftehran

Background: diarrheagenic escherichia coli(dec) strains cause a self-limited gastrointestinal disease in developing countries and often infect children. enteropathogenic e. coli(epec) is the most common dec strain, which is usually carried by diarrheal children. however, some non-diarrheal epec carriers, particularly atypical enteropathogenic e. coli(aepec), have been increasing in some countries, including iran. objectives: our aim was to evaluate the prevalence of typical epec and atypical epec strains and their antimicrobial resistance rate among non-diarrheal children under 10 years of age, isolated from schools and welfare centers in tehran. methods: we collected 350 fecal specimens from non-diarrheal children. the strains were analyzed for the presence of virulence genes such as eae, bfpa, stx-1, and stx-2genes. antibiotic resistance rates of the strains were examined using the disk diffusion method. results: among 350 fecal specimens, 160 specimens were taken from boys and 190 specimens from girls. the results of the genotypical-based assay for eae, bfpa, stx-1, and stx-2genes showed 32% of isolates were eaepositive. overall, of 142 isolates, 1.4% were only bfpapositive and 7.04% and 1.7% contained stx-1and stx-2, respectively. resistance rate to tigecycline among epec strains was more reported than other antibiotics. on the other hand, 13.43% of isolates were considered fosfomycin-susceptible epec strains. conclusions: the results showed the prevalence of atypical enteropathogenic e. colistrains is increasing in schools, and so there is a dangerous alarm as these carriers spread the antimicrobial-resistant strains in the community and can shift the microbial flora pattern.