Development of three multiplex-PCR assays for virulence profiling of different iron acquisition systems in .

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

is responsible for various enteric and extraintestinal infections in animals and humans. Iron as an essential nutrient, has a proven role in pathogenicity of . Pathogenic benefits of having complicated systems for iron acquisition but our current knowledge is limited because of complexity of these systems. In the present study, three multiplex-PCR assays were developed to screen nine different virulence genes related to diverse iron acquisition systems in

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The multiplex-PCR systems were designed and optimized in three panels. Each panel includes a triplex-PCR cocktail. The panels are as follow: panel 1: and ; panel 2: and ; and panel 3: and . A total of 39 pathogenic was screened according to the designed multiplex-PCR.

RESULTS

In total, the top three frequent genes were (100%), (66.6%) and (58.9%). With the exception of and , comparing the prevalence of genes among different origin of isolates (human, cattle, poultry and pigeon) showed significant associations ( < 0.05). Moreover, the and genes were significantly prevalent ( < 0.05) among members of extraintestinal pathogenic in comparison with the group of diarrheagenic

CONCLUSION

The current multiplex-PCR assays could be a valuable, rapid and economic tool to investigate diverse iron acquisition systems in for more precise virulence typing of pathogenic or commensal strains.