RESUMO
AIM: To correlate the clinical features of amebic infections with the characteristics of Entamoeba culture isolates of stools. METHODS: Isolates from seven irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients, four asymptomatic cyst passers (ACP) and five patients with invasive amebic disease were subjected to hexokinase polyacrylamide electrophoresis (HK-PAGE) and their DNA subjected to restriction fragment (RF) analysis of amplified polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products. These findings were correlated with anti-amebic serology. Two axenic pathogenic strains (HM1:IMSS, NIH:200) and one xenic nonpathogenic strain (SAW1734) were used as standards. RESULTS: All isolates from IBS patients as well as ACP had slow-moving (nonpathogenic) band pattern, whereas those from patients with invasive disease had fast-moving (pathogenic) band pattern on HK-PAGE. Serological data using EIA and RF patterns of PCR-amplified genome corroborated these results. CONCLUSIONS: Our results support the view that there are two species of Entamoeba infecting humans--E. histolytica(pathogenic) and E. dispar (nonpathogenic), and HK-PAGE of culture isolates can differentiate between them.