Isolation of haemolytic Escherichia coli from patients with urinary tract infection

ABSTRACT

One hundred and eighty-five isolates of Escherichia coli isolated from different sources, such as 131 isolates form 58 diarrhoea cases, 33 isolates from 21 control cases and 21 isolates from 9 urinary tract infection cases with different age groups were studied for haemolytic activity. It was observed that one case from diarrhoea cases showed alpha haemolytic activity; none of the control cases showed any haemolytic activity; and 3 cases of urinary tract infection showed beta haemolytic activity. The haemolytic E. coli isolates were also performed for the plasmid encoded haemolysin determinant and demonstrated to possess the haemolytic phenotype Hly and encodes 107,000 kilodalton. E. coli isolated from the urinary tract infections were also testted for antibiotic sensitivity and found that most of them were resistant to ampicillin, streptomycin and tetracycline.