Short Report

Characterization of endemic Shigella boydii strains isolated in Iran by serotyping, antimicrobial resistance, plasmid profile, ribotyping and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis

Reza Ranjbar¹ , Caterina Mammina² , Mohammad R Pourshafie³ and Mohammad M Soltan-Dallal⁴

¹Molecular Biology Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

²Department of Sciences for Health Promotion "G. D'Alessandro", University of Palermo, Via del Vespro 133, I-90127 Palermo, Italy

³Department of Microbiology, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran

⁴Department of Pathobiology, School of Public Health and Institute of Public Health Research, Tehran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran

author email corresponding author email

BMC Research Notes 2008, 1:74doi:10.1186/1756-0500-1-74

Published:	29 August 2008

Abstract

Background

Shigellosis is one of the major causes of morbidity in children with diarrhea in Iran. The present study was undertaken to characterize apparently sporadic Shigella boydii strains isolated from pediatric patients in Iran.

Findings

Ten S. boydii strains isolated from pediatric cases of gastroenteritis and acute diarrhea in Tehran between December 2002 and November 2003 were submitted to serotyping, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, plasmid profile analysis, ribotyping and pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Seven isolates were attributed to serotype 2, whereas the remaining three belonged to serotypes 14, 18, 19, respectively. Six drug resistance phenotypes (R1 to R6) were defined with R4 – streptomycin (STR), ampicillin (AMP), sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim (SXT) – being the most prevalent. Plasmid analysis resulted in seven different plasmid profiles with one to five DNA bands. All strains, but one, shared the same ribotype, but PFGE differentiated them in four groups.

Conclusion

Based upon ribotyping and PFGE results, endemic circulation of S. boydii in Tehran, Iran, could be attributed to a few clones. Resistance pattern and plasmid profile analysis proved to be very effective in discriminating apparently unrelated strains of S. boydii.