An Escherichia coli strain that causes diarrhea by invasion of the small intestinal mucosa and induces monosaccharide intolerance.

E. coli can induced diarrhea either by enterotoxin production or by invasion of the colonic mucosa. Here we report a 2/12 year old infant with caute diarrhea induced by E. coli strain, isolated from the jejunal fluid, that had no enterotoxigenic activity but invaded the small intestinal mucosa and induced severe morphological alterations. Total villous atrophy and monosaccharide intolerance occured. After 51 days of hospitalization there was a partial recovery of the small intestinal morphology and the patient could also tolerate disaccharides again.